


My Favorite Place

by emotionalminesweeper



Category: Faking It (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-05-08
Packaged: 2018-03-24 17:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3777574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emotionalminesweeper/pseuds/emotionalminesweeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Reamy] [AU] Reagan has just started in a new school and three things got her attention: 1. Hester was nothing like her old homophobic school; 2. everybody was talking about a lesbian couple that had no chemistry whatsoever; 3. one of those lesbian was very, very, very attractive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One:

**Author's Note:**

> This is Reamy. This is AU… ish. It starts around 1x03. 
> 
>  
> 
> So here’s the thing. I’m new at this. New at the fandom. New at writing in English – which is not my first language. New at publishing anything I write. I’m feeling apprehensive and I truly hope I won’t regret this. But I want this year to be different and I am giving it a shot. I’ll probably make grammar and/or spelling mistakes and it’s possible I’ll have a writer’s block sometime in the future, but have in mind I’m trying my very best. 
> 
>  
> 
> Reviews and any feedback will be much appreciate. Newbie needs all the love you guys can give. 
> 
>  
> 
> I do not own these characters.

**CHAPTER ONE:**

 

Reagan sighed for what seemed like the thousandth time since she’d parked outside her new school five minutes earlier. Hester High _Fucking_ School. Or – if you preferred – Reagan’s fifth school in four years.

 

Reagan wished she could say she was a lesbian rebel used to defy schools’ homophobic traditions and conservative methodology and that she was expelled from her old schools because of it. But in reality she was only a military brat. Moving around and new schools and never feeling like she had a home were everything she knew.

 

_Lucky her._

 

Being able to start from scratch was sometimes very refreshing, but it was mostly just tiring. She loved to leave behind the popular teenagers, the cheerleaders, the jocks and their never endless bullying. But she hated having to enter a new class and have everyone stared at her, whispering among themselves about who she was and if she was as lesbian as she seemed – _she was, in case you’re wondering_ – or how could she possibly have so many piercings or was her hair really purple? – _she had only five for God’s sake and yes, it was purple. Get over it._

 

She hated discovering all schools were pretty much the same.

 

Different state, different people – same dynamics.

 

Same old shit.

 

But – as much as she hated it – it had to be done.

 

Reagan was a practical eighteen-year old. Sometimes too practical. She spend her teenager years doing all crazy jobs over summer or after school. She firstly babysat and walked her neighbors’ dogs. Then she taught Spanish to some kids. She waitressed during some summers. There was a time she did all of that at the same time. In her last city, she found a job as a DJ – that was her favorite.

 

School was never her priority. College was never her goal.

 

She wanted to be independent. She wanted to have a home after she left her father’s place. A place of her own. That reflected her personality.

 

She didn’t need much. She just need to feel as if she belong.

 

And school never made her feel like it. So forgive her if she is not cheerful about one more high school, one more city.

 

But it had to be done. Sighing one last time, Reagan decided to enter Hester High School.

 

* * *

 

 

Two classes and a lunch later and Reagan had decided that Hester High School was a fucked up place.

 

To be fair, there were some points that made Hester better than any school she’d ever attended. There were no jocks or cheerleaders, the groups were not divided according to race or social class and she even saw two boys tongue kissing in broad daylight – and no one seemed bothered with it.

 

But there were things that made Hester just too disturbing. The principal of them was the so-called protest that started that day and made all students behave like lunatics. At first, Reagan didn’t understand what’d happened. She entered school only to find a bunch of students wearing red t-shirts of “Occupy Hester” and shouting superficial nonsense about privacy.

 

Then, someone handed her a pamphlet with all the details of the ‘event’ and she finally could say undoubtedly this Hester place was messed up. The students’ ostensible protest were against Skwerkel – _yes, the Skwerkel_ – because ooooooh the company wanted to donate money to the school and collect some date of its students.

 

Apparently that was the most invasion of privacy those students have ever heard of.

 

_Have they ever read facebook’s privacy policy? –_ Reagan thought smirking unconsciously.

 

“God!” someone said, suddenly sitting near her at a table outside of the principal building of Hester, “Could this school get more ridiculous?”

 

This person was a tiny blonde-haired girl who was wearing pink and frankly looked one of those teenagers from _Mean Girls_. Reagan tried not to, but she herself looked around to make sure this girl was actually talking with her.

 

“Yes, I am talking with you. Since you seem to be the only coherent person that didn’t join this craziness.” the blonde spoke impatiently but smiling somewhat, “I’m Lauren, by the way. I’m also new here… kind of.”

 

“Reagan.” she decided to introduce herself. Blondie was being polite, so who cares if the was the stereotype of people Reagan usually avoid like the plague? “And how do you know I’m new?”

 

“Because I’ve never heard of you or seen you and if Hester had you like a month ago there’s no fucking way they would’ve given a second glance to Karmy, since you’re so more lesbian and hotter than them – and no, and I’m not hitting on you ‘cause I’m straight as they come. Anyway, I would know you, because you would be popular. Like Fucking Shane Harvey popular, although I will never understand how that happened…” Lauren chattered so quickly and so fiercely that Reagan had to wonder if it was better just fake a faint to avoid any conversation. Instead, she said flatly:

 

“Dude, you lost me at – _what was that?_ – Karmy.”

 

“I forgot you were new and oblivious,” Lauren sighed dramatically. “Is this your very first day?”

 

“Yup, you?”

 

“Unfortunately I’m here about a month and it hasn’t got any better. Why did you move?”

 

“Military brat,” Reagan shrugged; she had long before realized that those words summarized everything anyone needed to know about her and her family, “What about you?”

 

“My dear dad decided to marry a woman that lives here, so we moved,” Lauren shrugged. She didn’t seem much of a sharer either and Reagan felt an unwelcomed rush of sympathy as she realized she had something in common with that girl.

 

“So,” Reagan decided to change subjects. “Karmy?”

 

“Oh, yes. They are the most infuriating couple ever. Karmy means Karma plus Amy, two sophomores who pretend to be lesbians….”

 

“What do you mean ‘pretend’?” Reagan’s interest all of sudden was peaked. Anything with lesbians did that with her.

 

“Amy is my stepsister, as much as I hate to say it. She and Karma are not a couple. They’re just two lame girls with none sexual experience whatsoever who Shane thought were a couple because they are always together. Honestly, their friendship is a little unhealthy, but there’re no… Look!” Lauren suddenly stopped her story and pointed to the door of the school, “The blond one is Amy, my stepsister. The moron who is apparently… chaining herself to the door is Karma.”

 

Reagan looked because, as much as she hated gossip, that story was just too bizarre. She saw two good-looking girls, one tall blonde – _was Lauren sure she was not a lesbian?_ Reagan had a thing for blondes – and one other wearing the protesters’ t-shirt and who was indeed chaining herself to the door.

 

“Why would they pretend to be lesbians?”

 

That was the thing that made no sense to Reagan. Unless you’re a character in _Orange is the new Blake_ , it sucks to be a lesbian – and even on the show the prison had a homophobic counselor prick who had a mission to destroy Reagan’s OTP.

 

So being a lesbian? Not the easiest thing in the world.

 

And Reagan knew all from experience.

 

As a lesbian you get called names, you can’t hold hands with the person you love in every place without having hateful people looking at you, you may have your own parents turned their back on you, you may not get married in some states and in some countries there’re laws that forbid you to even love someone. You grow up learning you have to like boys and learning things about how a girl has to be and not fitting in and suffering silently because of that. You distance yourself from your girlfriends because you’re afraid of what they might feel if they find out you like girls, even though you never saw them as more than friends. You hurt yourself when they say you disgust them. You still go to school the next day and change your profile in facebook so say _you’re a fucking lesbian and whoever don’t like it can suck it up_. But before that? Before you are all out and proud? You feel abnormal because everyone on TV is heterosexual and even the gay people are so fucking stereotyped you can’t see yourself in them. You don’t know how to tell people you’re gay and you’re into them. You don’t know how to be in a relationship because you never knew an woman who would openly discuss her relationship with another woman until you have your own relationship and all your uncertainties give your first girlfriend the power to break your heart as many times as she wish.

 

“Well, from what I gathered, Karma wanted to be popular and my dear stepsister just went along with it.” Seeing how that made no sense to Reagan, Lauren explained a little better, “As you can obviously see from this freak show, Hester is not like any high school. Here the outcasts are the in crowds. Here everyone is socialist, hugs trees, doesn’t eat meat and apparently dislikes the internet… and whatever they will decided to do next week. So if you’re homosexual, muslim, black, gothic, feminist, communist or just fucking stupid – you’re in. If you’re not, you’re out”

 

There was a pause.

 

“So, congratulations. Because you’ll probably be in.” concluded Lauren with scorn and a little resignation she’s obviously trying to hide in her forced smile.

 

“I’ll be in because I’m a lesbian?” Reagan speculated loudly still thinking that was too weird even to high school’s standards. The fact that Lauren knew she was a lesbian and did not make anything out of it was soothing. “And you’ll be out because you’re… you?”

 

Reagan scanned Lauren for some seconds and saw a tiny girl too dressed up to school, trying too hard to achieve something, all dolled up. Usually Lauren would be the type that would make Reagan puke, but the girl had treated her well so far. She was the first to talk to her. Reagan could see – as crazy as that could sound – Lauren had something inside, hidden with all the make-up, jewelry and pinkness. She knew it because she sometimes felt just like her.

 

Behind all the piercing, cool jackets, purple hair and lesbian pride, she also concealed so many things.

 

Besides, it was not like Reagan to join the popular ones. Or – worse – to side with the ones ruling someone out just because they could.

 

She was an outsider at heart.

 

“That’s messed up, dude.” she ended up saying at the same time one of the fake lesbians decided to call for a hunger strike and all students started to cheer and scream around Reagan and Lauren as a bunch of maniacs, “ _Shut the front door_. Did she really do that?”

 

“In the dictionary, under fucked up there’s a picture of Karma, I swear.” Lauren said with disgust shaking her head.

 

“These people have ever heard of Facebook or _I don’t know_ , Edward Snowden?” Reagan wondered aloud and Lauren actually laughed at her. Again, Reagan felt a pang of consideration for the girl.

 

“Do you want to get out of here?” Lauren asked unexpectedly and with some uncertainty that did not matched her fierce personality.

 

“Sure.” she replied smiling. She really wanted to get out of that place, but she also wanted to get to know a new person.

 

* * *

 

 

They ended up at Lauren’s place. Reagan discovered a lot about Hester and its dearest couple over sandwiches and iced teas. According to Lauren, Karmy decided to fake being a couple to be popular and that had gone incredibly well, because they had been nominated homecoming queens and were even interviewed by a local channel.

 

Theirs lies were so complex they came out for their parents – two of which were Lauren’s parents as well – and they invented a puppy love story that could be published on school’s tumblr. Lauren told her about how she tried to expose both girls but Amy kissed Karma in front of everyone just to prove her wrong and since then Karmy was in everyone’s mouth and Lauren was hated by the whole school. The so-called couple pretended to be a happy and perfect and was usually talking about how amazing life was and acting as if they freaking knew what it actually was being a lesbian. To Reagan, it was almost offensive what those girls were doing because they were spreading a false sense of being homosexual.

 

What would they do when they get tired of playing this game and start dating boys? Claim it was a phase?

 

But she tried not to think about any of these unknown wannabe lesbians and have fun – which, surprisely, she did. She discovered a lot about Lauren. She was mean and petty when she wanted, but she had good taste for books and movies, seemed dedicated and had strong values. She could talk about anything since it didn’t get too personal, and that was fine by Reagan. She’s the same.

 

Reagan was honestly surprised about how much Lauren knew and how critical she could be. The girl had deepness, even though she appeared just one mean girl. Yeah, of course, she loved to gossip and knew all about magazines, pedicures, shopping, clothes and yogalates. But she could still understands most of Reagan’s references to songs and TV shows and even surprised Reagan with a reference to _Orphan Black_ – one of her favorites, she said.

 

At some point of their conversation about the show, Blondie said she herself had some traits that remind her of Allison – the soccer mom with a gun – while Reagan remind her of Cosima – the hot lesbian with brains; and since then they have been calling each other Allison/Cosima and laughing senseless all the times they did.

 

Lauren was just telling her how she was now addicted to a new TV show called _How to get away with murder_ – very educational, she said – when they heard Lauren’s phone. She picked it up and talked for about two minutes before hanging up and turning do Reagan:

 

“I’m sorry, Cos.” she pouted as she spoke lightheartedly, “But all this protest-craziness made me forget I had a date with my boyfriend. I’ll have to get dressed now.”

 

“No problem, Allison.” Reagan answered just as witty, winking and getting up of Lauren’s bed. “I know being married and mother of two beautiful children can be very demanding.” she rolled her eyes dramatically, before sobered up, “I should go anyways, my father should be home anytime.”

 

“I’ll accompany you ‘til the door.” the shorter one said, also getting up.

 

“No need, I think I remembered where that was. You should probably doll yourself up for Donnie.” she smirked referring to another Orphan Black’s character.

 

“Yeah, I should. Did I told you I share a bathroom with my stepsister aka Hester’s favorite lesbian? I should get in the shower before she gets home.”

 

“You do that and I’ll see you tomorrow.” Reagan waved and she was just about closing the door behind her when Lauren called the brunette, “Yeah?”

 

“I had a nice day today.” the short girl said quietly,“Maybe we can repeat one of these days?”

 

“You don’t even have to ask, blondie.” she smirked and laughed as Lauren rolled her eyes at the nickname.

 

Closing the bedroom’s door behind herself, Reagan was surprised with herself and with how much fun she did actually have that day. It was common for her to spend days in a new city without a single soul paying attention to her and now she had _sort of_ made a friend. An unusual friend, but…

 

Without watching where she was going while searching for her car keys in her bag, she bumped into something right in the hall.

 

Reagan let her eyes wide open in surprise when she realized she had indeed bumped into something. _Into Someone._ Into the blonde fake lesbian/Lauren’s stepsister. She could finally see her from up-close and _damn… she was fine_. She was tall and thin, but with flawless curves in all the right places and never-ending legs. Her wavy and dirty blond hair naturally framed her face and those gloomy and greenish eyes and that… rosy and perfect mouth.

 

_Jesus Christ. Have mercy._

 

_Back pedal, Reagan –_ she then thought. _She’s a fucking fake lesbian. Straight girls are dangerous._

 

“Damn, my shrimps!” the girl exclaimed not paying any attention to Reagan but to a plate that apparently had fallen when the two of them had bumped into each other.

 

Reagan felt tempted to kneel down and collected the great amount of shrimps that had been knocked everywhere down the hall, but to a reason just later she would feel she need to analyze Reagan was paralyzed staring this blond girl pouting over her lost food.

 

Just then realizing she was not alone and that a strange person was right in front of her, the blonde girl turned to Reagan somewhat shocked and accusingly, “Who the fuck are you? And what are you doing at my place?”

 

“I’m Lauren’s friend and…” she trailed off watching the girl close enough to realize her eyes were watering. The girl – _was she Karma or Amy?_ Reagan was terrible with names – was doing everything she could to not look in Reagan’s direction, trying hard not to blink so a tear wouldn’t fall.

 

After listening whom Reagan was, the other girl apparently lost all interest in her and knelt down at the floor to start cleaning all the shrimp mess. The girl was obviously nervous, her hands were shaking and she was snuffing discreetly, as if she had been crying before. Not knowing how to act around an unknown crying and beautiful girl, Reagan tried to light the mood whilst : “Those must be some great shrimps if you’re more worried about them falling than about a stranger in your house.” she said somewhat clumsily arching one eyebrow.

 

The blond girl stared at Reagan not amused. “You already ruined my dinner. You can go now.” she affirmed trying to sound annoyed, but failing miserably when a lonely tear finally run down her face.

 

Their eyes met each other briefly. Dark eyes staring down the lighter ones. Curiosity searching in sad green pools. Reagan felt a pang of recognition all of sudden, before the other girl could look away.

 

She knew that sadness.

 

_Heartache._

 

“Look, Shrimp Girl.” Reagan spoke after some seconds of silence, kneeling down in front of her and waiting until the blonde one looked at her face. “I’m sorry about your dinner. I wasn’t looking and I can pay for it and help you clean everything up. You don’t have to cry about it, ok?” she apologized sincerely, feeling a rush of courage and touching the younger girl’s face to catch the tear rolling down her cheek.

 

The girl seemed surprised about Reagan apparent lack of respect for personal space, but didn’t pull back. Reagan caressed the soft and cold skin with her thumb and decided to push her lucky even further:

 

“Unless… you’re not crying over spilled milk.” she said with a soft smile and knowing smile. She felt a very unusual and strong need to know more about this girl.

 

“I’m not.” Shrimp Girl confessed after a long pause. “Even though food waste is one of humanity’s most fatal tragedy, you know.” she attempted to joke, her eyes glittering in a way Reagan found adorable.

 

“Indeed.” Reagan’s smile widened making the other girl smile faintly too.

 

“I just…” she started unsure of herself. Reagan could tell she didn’t want to share anything personal with a stranger and need to talk with someone at the same time. “I’m just having some troubles… with my… girlfriend… I guess.”

 

“You mean your fake girlfriend?” before she could control her tongue, the words had flow out of her mouth. _Damn impulsivity._ “I mean… Lauren told me about it.” she tried to explain. She felt embarrassed. She didn’t mean to snap. She didn’t know why she did. She just did.

 

Shrimp Girl pulled away gaping at her, not believing what she had just heard. “Of course she did, you’re friends with Satan.” she shook her head and looked at her with coldness, “You know what? You may think you know all about me or my feelings for Karma…”

 

Reagan’s eyebrow arched after that slip-up. She hadn’t said anything about knowing about her feelings for Karma. She had actually assumed there _wasn’t_ any feelings.

 

“But you don’t. You know nothing. And you can go now.” she told her so angrily she could barely speak.

 

“I may not know you, Shrimp Girl.” Reagan admitted standing up and looking at the other girl with a knowing smile, “But I was once a teenager girl who was in love with her own best friend. Girl best friend.” she clarified and Shrimp Girl’s eyes grow big in awareness, “So I wouldn’t say I know _nothing_.”

 

“See you around.” she then said when the blonde girl didn’t answer her.

 

Reagan walked out the house not knowing she had left behind an even more confusing fifteen-year-old.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry about any mistakes. English is not my first language and I didn't have the time to read it a million times to make sure it was readable. 
> 
> nomeiodoredemunho, thank you so much for your help on this chapter and for the pep talk. You rock.

**CHAPTER TWO**

 

 Reagan stared at the roof of her bedroom in Austin, her thoughts all over the place and no signal of sleeping even though it was already past 4:00am. She hadn’t slept all night. Instead, she had tossed, turned and continuously rolled around in her bed thinking about a certain girl she had no business thinking about.

 

 Shrimp Girl.

 

 Since their encounter two weeks before, Reagan had seen the girl around school too many times to count. She tried not to. She really did. She started making the longer ways to her classes; she hanged around the music room and she even tried to eat lunch earlier or later than everybody else did. However, it had not matter. Shrimp Girl seemed to be everywhere. 

 

 She and her stupid fake girlfriend.

 

 They were everywhere. _Every-fucking-where_. Holding hands. Kissing. Whispering in each other’s ears. Or giggling at each other.

 

Giggling as if they were _actually_ fucking in love.

 

 For a fake relationship, they sure seemed real sometimes – if you were not paying too much attention, _that is_. But Reagan was. Paying excessively attention. To **all** the details. All the little damn details she wasn’t supposed to care about.

 

 She had noticed the way the redhead was always who initiated the kiss and ended it. And how she did that only if someone was watching it. Especially if that someone was a certain senior guy that was in Reagan’s Art Class – _was his name Logan or Liam…? Or maybe Lee or Leo._ _Ugh, who cares?_ She also had noticed how the redhead creased her forehead almost unnoticeably every time they had to kiss; and how the blonde one took a few seconds to recover from each kiss they shared – her green eyes slowly opened, and at first they always sparkled dreamily, but as reality sunk in her face strained not to fall down.

 

 If it was a torture to watch it from afar, she could only imagine what the girl was feeling.

  

Reagan had her fair shares of unrequited love and she knew how much they hurt. She knew how much worse it could be if the person were led to believe that love _were not unrequited_ and then discover she were falling in love all by herself. Alone. In other occasion, Reagan had fallen and crashed to pieces on floor. Alone. Almost as a crash and burn. With her wide-awake during it. Feeling all of her breaking bones and skin on fire. 

  

She could see it was going to happen to Shrimp Girl. And it made her ache all over.

  

Because she could do nothing about it. 

 

 And she didn’t know why that thought made her chest hurt so much.  

 

* * *

“You’re up early.” Her father said without taking his eyes off the newspaper when she entered the kitchen. The room smelled like coffee. Her favorite smell at the morning and the only smell she could always count on when she was constantly moving around the country.

  

Her dad was a man of habits. He woke up every day at the same time, made coffee and toast, put his uniform that was always perfectly ironed (and for the life of her, Reagan couldn’t figure out how!), had his breakfast while reading the paper and drove to work.

 

 Reagan was also a girl of habits. She always woke up very late, drank her coffee fast enough to run the risk of choking to death, never ate breakfast for lack of time, put the first crumpled clothe she found and drove to school. 

 

 Hence, she and her father rarely met at morning. That event was worth mentioning.

  

“Couldn’t sleep.” she admitted because she knew her father; he wouldn’t ask for details. Not out of respect for her privacy, but out of indifference. “I’m going for a quick run before school.”

  

Reagan loved to run. She loved most sports that gave her a taste of being free. She didn’t need much to run: only herself, a good pair of tennis and her Ipod. With every step she gave, it seemed one nagging thought would drop at the floor and at the end of her run, she would feel weightless and relaxed.

 

 She needed that. _Badly_. 

 

 “How is school going, by the way?” her father asked eying her while she was tying her running tennis. “We’ve been so busy we haven’t had the time to talk.”

 

  _Really, dad? **We** ’ve been so busy?, _she wanted to ask him.

  

She hadn’t been busy. He hadn’t been home to know that. _Another habit._

  

“Great. Hester is… awesome.” she replied smiling falsely, standing up and walking to the door. Her hand hesitated at the doorknob and her voice sounded a little too hopeful when she turned to her father and enquired: “I’ll see you when I came back?”

 

 “No, I’m leaving in five.” his attention had returned to the paper. Reagan opened the door and still heard as he absently said “Te amo.” (“I love you”)

 

  _Yeah. Right._

 

* * *

“She’s looking at you again.” Haley said from beside Reagan, eying someone discretely while eating her second flan of that lunch ( _Reagan’s flan, mind you_ ).

 

Haley used to hang out with Hester’s group of gothic teenagers until a recent disagreement she didn’t like to talk about. She had all the gothic’s stereotype of black hair and black clothes, piercings all over and heavy eye makeup accentuating the blue in her eyes. She could seem an angry girl to a prejudiced stranger, but she was, in fact, a sweetheart. Always smiling and showing off her cute dimples and chubby cheeks.

  

Reagan had met Haley at her Chemistry’s class. They had sat together and their teacher had decided to partner them up. Haley praised Reagan’s hair and Reagan asked her about the smoky eye make-up. Since then, they had discovered they had many things in common and were inseparable. They both liked the same books and the same movies. They both liked to draw and all artsy things someone could imagine. In fact, Haley had invited Reagan and a boy from their English’s class to a gallery opening the week before. There they met Haley’s boyfriend and best friend and the four of them made Reagan forget she was in a new city.  

 

But as much as she liked Haley and could see her as a friend, she could not talk to her about Shrimp Girl and whatever the fuck was going through her own head about the blonde.

 

“Who?” she asked trying to look oblivious and as if they hadn’t had that conversation before or as if she wasn’t feeling Shrimps’ eyes on her. 

  

“That Amy girl.” Haley said, disapprovingly, “Does she even remember she have a girlfriend? God!”

  

Shrimp Girl had indeed been looking a lot at Reagan in those last few weeks – and she knew that because she was constantly looking at the girl too. It seemed evident to Reagan that Shrimp Girl was confused about their whole encounter and was too ashamed, or too proud, or too shy, or too angry or everything at once to confront Reagan about it.

  

“I don’t think she looks at me that way, Hales.” It was true. She didn’t. And if Reagan felt herself wither at the thought, she decided not to dwell on it.

  

“It’s starting to freak me out. Maybe she feel threated with another lesbian around and is planning on killing you.” Haley reasoned with such a pretentious sincerity that made Reagan laugh. “What? This is US, stranger things have happened.” she shrugged with a clever smile.

  

“She probably just finds odd that I’m Lauren’s friend.” Reagan cogitated after a while.

  

“Yeah, well. I agree with her on that.” Haley deadpanned and the brunette rolled her eyes at her friend’s dislike for Lauren.

  

“Anyways… I have some good news!” Reagan tried to change the subject and remembered something she had wanted to tell Haley before. She finally could get excited about something and put aside all Shrimp Girl’s drama for a minute. “When I was in California, I met a girl from here through tumblr. We finally met last week for a coffee and she told me she had some contacts in some clubs… Anyways, yesterday she called me to say she got a job as DJ for me. It’s this weekend. You’ll come, right?” she said it all with a big smile on her face and her eyes were glowing in a way that just spinning had them glowing.

  

“A lesbian with tumblr, that’s such a cliché.” the gothic girl mentioned flatly, suppressing her smile so Reagan would not see she was being played.

  

“That’s all you got from what I said?” Reagan gaped and then playfully slapped Haley’s arm, laughing hard when she realized the girl was playing tricks on her, “Bitch!”

  

“I’m kidding! Of course I’ll go!” Haley was also laughing at this point, but her voice had a “duh” tone, as if it was even possible she would not go to Reagan’s gig. She then turned to say something else and saw someone approaching, “Urgh, Barbie is coming. We’ll talk about this later, ok?”

  

Reagan barely had time to nod before Haley flied away. She didn’t like Lauren and Reagan could understand her dislike, as much as she wished it was different. On the surface, Haley and Lauren were opposites. Reagan, though, could see many layers behind Lauren’s apparent superficial personality and honestly liked the girl.

  

“Hey stranger,” she said smiling to the tiny blonde as she sat in front of Reagan. “Haven’t see you around this week.”

  

“Sorry, but I’ve been trying to lay low these days.” Lauren was being all secretive behind her sunglasses and was even talking in a lower tone than her usual fierce one.

  

“Any special reason?” Reagan arched her eyebrow curiously, lowing her own tone too. Lauren wasn’t being herself. 

  

“I just sent some… pictures to my boyfriend and I was afraid he would… you know.” the blonde whispered conspiratorially and all Reagan could do was roll her eyes. _Only Lauren_ , she thought.

  

“He didn’t, did he?”

 

“Oh, no. Tommy is not like that.” Lauren waved her off with a tense smile and Reagan could tell something was not right, but she preferred not to ask. If Lauren wanted to talk about something personal, she would simply talk. 

  

“Great. I’d hate to have to kill him.” she spoke feigning relief.

  

“Please. _As if you could._ You may wear the combat boots, but I have the gun.” Lauren said dangerously sure of herself. 

  

“You’re right.” Reagan had a half pout at her lips, “But I’d help hide the corpse.”

  

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Both girls smiled fondly at each other knowing that was their awkward way to say they care.

  

“So… how is everything at home?” Reagan then asked after a few seconds of silence. In the few weeks she has known Lauren, she realized just how much lonely the girl was. Not much different from Reagan herself. But the brunette was actually used to move around and not having too many friends at a new city and had actually plenty of contacts online that filled some of the emptiness she felt.  Lauren was taking things harder. Being in a school where she wasn’t welcomed and in a house where she wasn’t much liked didn’t help either.

  

“Better, I guess. I’m closer to Farrah now. We having been hanging out and I actually made her try yogalates every morning with me.” Lauren said sounding actually excited with her achievement. She pauses before voicing more quietly, head down: “It’s like having a mother, I suppose.”

  

Reagan did not know what had happened to Lauren’s mom and she was not ready to ask and – _worse_ – being asked. She was glad, though, that Lauren could know what it’s like to actually have a mother.

  

“I still hate Amy, that haven’t change and I doubt it ever will,” her voice stiffened as she continued her rambling indifferent to Reagan’s inner thoughts. “I can’t get past her relationship with Karma – whom I hate even more. They sometimes seem to forget they are faking it. Even at home.” She sighed tiredly, finally taking her sunglasses off and revealing that her blues eyes were strangely somber, “Amy seems to like to pretend, you know? She goes home and gloats seeing Farrah unhappy. I’d understand if she was actually a lesbian… but she’s not. She’s hurting her mother just for the fun of it. Who does that?” she asked rhetorically, shaking her head.

  

Reagan heard what Lauren had not said, though. She had always been good at reading between the lines and it was perfectly clear what pissed Lauren off: Amy had a mother who cared and she took for granted.

  

Not all of them had the same lucky.

 

* * *

 

“This place is awesome,” Haley yelled at one of Reagan’s ear pulling the DJ closer in the dancing floor, her hand in the DJ’s waist. Reagan had just finished her first performance and she could not help but smile as she joined Haley at the floor. It had been a success. The house was full; everyone had danced and jumped to her music choices; and she still had gotten Haley, Haley’s boyfriend and best friend and Matt (English’s class guy friend) to have fun and dance all night.

  

At that moment, Reagan was dancing with all of them, moving between Haley and Matt – whom was doing silly movements to make the group laugh at his awkwardness and lack of skills. Which was working as the other four was shaking with laughs in their improvised small circle.

  

“You were awesome up there.” He said winking at Reagan and stopped dancing as a new and slower song started playing.

  

“Thank you, Matty.” She smiled up at him and turning to the others, she said sincerely and a little emotional: “Thank you all for coming.” It was not common for her to make friends so quickly and she was overwhelmed by that and by how nice they all were.

  

“Thank you for asking!” Haley said maybe too loud as she hugged Reagan maybe too tight. She was clearly a little more than tipsy: “Let’s hit the bar!”

  

The bar was in a space a little secluded to the dance floor. So they all walked there – Haley stumbled a few times but was helped by her boyfriend – and Reagan offered to pay for the next round and for all the water and soda Nadia, Haley’s best friend, was drinking, since she had offered to stay sober and drive all of them home. When their drinks arrived, they all cheered Reagan on and talked about unimportant things while drinking. It felt as if they knew each other since ages before.

  

“Girlie, don’t look now. But there’s a woman totally checking you out.” Haley suddenly whispered in her ear, more excited by that fact than Reagan felt after hearing it, “Three o’clock.”

  

She looked over discretely. Undeniably, there were a woman eating Reagan with her eyes at her right. She was not being exactly subtle about her desire and sometimes Reagan liked girls like that – the times she wished for a hard fuck against the door or at her car.

  

The woman was short with strawberry blond hair. Mid-twenties, probably. Incontestably sexy just by the way she was looking at Reagan. Nevertheless, as Reagan looked at the woman – who smiled and raised her glass as a way of greeting – Reagan felt only emptiness. That woman’s beauty did nothing for her. Her hair was the wrong tone of blond. Her eyes were not green enough. She had freckles. She was too short, too old and too self-confident.

  

There were a time she would have not cared about those things or even enjoyed them, but at that moment, her brain could only find them huge turns off.

  

“Not my type.” she then said to Haley, smiling faintly and returning to their conversation.

  

* * *

When Reagan woke up on Sunday all happiness she reached the day before spinning crazily for hours seemed to be still pulsing in her body but in a slow and languid way. She stretched for some minutes, thinking about all the lazing around she would do and all Netflix she could watch that day before reaching for her IPhone on her nightstand.

  

As usual, there were many notifications. But since it was Sunday she could actually pay attention to them. The few interesting ones, anyways.

 

 Passing her eyes slowly through all tiny letters, her eyes all of sudden grow wide and her body unconsciously shot straight up from her bed.

  

_The fuck._

  

_Amy Raudenfield wanted to be her friend?_

  

Okay. Facebook friend – all right. Which is practically nothing, but still a step above the pretending they were totally strangers _thing_ the two of them had going on for two whole weeks.

  

She hurriedly accepted Shrimp Girl as her friend – telling herself it was only because it was polite and because she wanted to do a little and innocent stalking… which was tacitly consented for the stalked person herself since she had asked Reagan to be her friend, so it was all right and not creepy at all…

  

_Right…?_

  

Reagan then pushed her MacBook to her lap so she could properly stalk (only newbies stalk on the phone and they get caught when they accidentally like a post – Reagan was above that) and opened it to be even more surprised to find that Shrimp Girl had just message her.

  

Yes. In the _five seconds_ between her acceptance of her request and Reagan opening her facebook page at her MacBook, Shrimp Girl – the one who has been hunting her mind lately – had just message her. Someone seemed eager.

  

_Breathe, Reagan. Remember to fucking breathe._

  

**Amy** : _Are you there?_   

  

It was not the most articulate phrase, but it made Reagan smiled. It was just _so_ like her. Just so Shrimps.

  

**Reagan:** _Apparently I am._

 

**Reagan:** _And hi. I didn’t know you were talking to me._

  

In the meanwhile, – _because yes, girls can multitask_ – Reagan was already looking through Amy’s profile. Which was very… banal.  There were practically nothing that revealed who was Shrimp Girl. There were, though, many pictures of #Karmy. Too many, if someone asked Reagan’s opinion.

  

_Who was Amy Raudenfield beyond her fake relationship?_ Reagan was dying to know.

  

**Amy:** _Maybe I shouldn’t be._  

  

**Reagan:** _I’m only messing with you, Shrimp Girl. I’ve wanted to talk to you since that day._

  

**Amy:** _You have? And my name’s Amy, you know._

  

**Reagan** : _Your point being…?_

  

Even apart, Reagan could feel Shrimp Girl’s hesitation in the whole conversation. She was uncomfortable. She was taking too long to type and then she would stop typing and then return. She did that two times and Reagan didn’t realize how itchy she was herself waiting for Amy’s next words until they jumped in her screen:

  

**Amy** : _I wanted to apologize for the way I behaved that day at my place._

  

**_Reagan_ ** _: You have nothing to be sorry. I was the one that crossed the line. It’s not of my business._

**_Amy_ ** _: It’s cool. I needed to hear you say what you did. You put a name in my feelings. I’d probably still be living in denial if it wasn’t for you._

**_Reagan_ ** _: Then you’re very lucky that I have no boundaries._

  

**Amy** : _I have a question for you._

  

**Reagan** : _Shoot._

 

**_Amy_ ** _: Can we start over?_

It was a sweet and simple question. Nevertheless, it was loaded with possibilities Reagan should really think about. There were nothing to gain in a potential relationship with this girl – she was too young, too unexperienced, too pretty and too complicated. She was, after all, in love with someone while Reagan was constantly thinking her own mouth would feel amazingly on the blonde’s.

  

There was nothing there to Reagan’s benefit. But still.

 

**_Reagan_ ** _: Sure. Why not?_

A platonic friendship with someone unavailable was just typical Reagan’s way of torture herself and if she had a therapist she knew he/she would say Reagan had autodestruct tendencies and _whatnot_. But honestly? Reagan’s wasn’t thinking. Her heart was beating too loud. Her hands were starting to sweat. And as much as she felt like an idiot for it, she was smiling at her wooziness.

  

She was feeling something and she didn’t care if the girl would never reciprocated because that feeling seemed too important to just ignore it.

  

Yes. She was screwed. She knew it. She just didn’t mind at that point.

**_Reagan_ ** _: Hello, my name’s Reagan, I’m 18 and I just moved to Austin._

**_Amy:_ ** _Nice to meet you. My name’s Amy, 15, I lived here all my life and the only things I love more than shrimps are doughnuts and Netflix._

**_Reagan_ ** _: LOL a girl who knows her priorities in life! I like it._

**_Amy_ ** _: Listen. I’m horrible at small talk and even worse at trying to talk online. Maybe we could meet somewhere? Maybe for a coffee?_

**_Reagan_ ** _: Name the place and time._

Shit. Shit shit shit.

Screwed didn’t even cover how she would end up. She was beyond fucked.

* * *

“I’m sorry I’m a little late.” Reagan apologized as she spotted Shrimp Girl sitting alone at the diner they were meeting.  She sat in a booth in front of the blond girl and explained, still reddish from running late: “I had just woken up when we started chatting.”

  

“Late night?” Amy fished discreetly for information and Reagan took advantaged to stare at the girl and her rosy cheeks, her green eyes, her wavy hair and… _God, the mouth_.

  

“You could say that.” she shrugged absently, reaching for the menu. “Yesterday was my first night working as a DJ here.”

  

“You’re a DJ?” the girl was surprised and rightfully so, after all how many high-school girls are Djs? Reagan felt a little proud for being the target of Amy’s admiration. “That’s awesome!”

 

 “Well, I’m trying to be.” She admitted, trying hard not to blush. “Did you order?” Change the subject. Always a great tactic.

  

“No, I was waiting for you.” She said and they looked over the menu together, Amy having something to say about all options. They ended up getting two different burgers with fries (extra fries to Amy) and milk shakes (Nutella milkshake for Reagan and strawberry for Amy).

  

“I looked and there wasn’t any shrimp on the menu. How come you wanted to meet here?” Reagan asked impishly and a tad curious at Shrimp Girl.

  

“Yeah, it’s mine and Karma’s favorite since we were ten or eleven.” She put her hair behind her ear nervously.

  

Reagan felt tempted to roll her eyes at that.  Not even ten minutes of conversation and Karma was already on table.

  

“How is that going for you, by the way?” she questioned instead, arching her eyebrow curiously. Shrimp Girl just looked at her blankly and she elaborated, curving her challenging eyebrow a little bit more: “Your romance?”

  

“You know there’s no romance.” the blonde said quite cynically, “You were right that day. I’m in love with my best friend, but all I’m to her is a fake girlfriend.”

  

Reagan was surprised by the raw honesty in Amy’s eyes when the girl stared at her, her voice shivering slightly at the end. The green in her eyes became darker while she admitted, softly, almost embarrassed, trying not to look away: “You know what it’s funny? A complete stranger could tell that, but my own best friend doesn’t see it.”

  

Reagan smiled at her discomfort and insecurity; that girl was just so damn adorable. “To be fair, I am pretty amazing in reading people’s feelings and thoughts. She didn’t stand a chance against me.” She playfully said, smiling when the girl seemed to relax at her. “I’m talented, Shrimps.”

  

“Oh really?” Amy asked and her own lips took the forms of a smile without her taking conscious of it. “What am I thinking now?”

  

Reagan stared at her long. Her eyes now seemed back to a lighter color, gleaming slightly and making a good combination with the curves at the girl’s rosy lips. She had a childish and anxious look at her face and all the brunette could really think was that she was beautiful.

  

_Not good, Reagan. Not good at all._

  

“I can’t decide if you’re thinking I’d be a great friend to you ‘cause I know what you’re going through and I won’t judge you or if you’re thinking you are so lucky to be in the companion of someone so hot and smart and modest as me.” she declared knowingly, but still lightheartedly. “In both cases you’re right, anyways.” she winked at the other girl, who blushed.

  

“Good to know.” Shrimp Girl whispered looking down and then trying to steal a glance at Reagan just to find out the girl still staring at her, amused.

  

“Tell me how it all started.” Reagan pleaded after a few seconds of the noiseless staring between the two of them.

  

“What?” Amy was confused. That minute their food arrived and Reagan watched as the blonde’s eyes wide in pure delight. They thanked their waitress and Amy all but attacked her burger, still waiting for Reagan to repeat what was that she wanted to know.

  

“The all faking thing. I only know from Lauren’s point of view and… _I don’t know._ I guess I want to understand why someone would pretend to be a lesbian. It’s not like the world likes us very much.” That was an understatement.

  

“Karma wanted to be popular and I just went along with it. It was silly. I wasn’t thinking.” Shrimps shrugged, all her attention on her _huge_ burger.

  

“Obviously.” she teased venomously, rolling her eyes.

  

“So tell me your history.” Amy asked unexpectedly and her eyes were all wide and expectantly glaring at Reagan as if she was actually interested in what the DJ had to say.

  

“Oh, you know. Military brat. Lived practically everywhere. Now we moved here.” She explained unimpressively. Her life was boring. Sue her.

 

 “Your father is in the Army?” Shrimp Girl, though, seemed impressed. “How did he take you coming out? Does he know? And your mother? Do you have siblings?” 

  

“I’m an only child and my mother’s not around.” She clarified in a sour tone. She moistened her lip with her tongue, as if remembering her story about her father and not realizing that Amy’s eyes followed her tongue’s movement: “And my dad knows. I guess he always knew. It was not as if I was always talking about boys. When I told him it’s like I was telling him I was changing my hair color again. He usually warns me about leaving stains on the bathroom, but that’s about it. He told me about how the world could be cruel with someone different. That was it. There was no judgement.”

  

“He sounds amazing.”

  

“He has his moments.” It wasn’t a _complete_ lie. “What about your mother?”

  

The younger girl stopped chewing for a moment, composing herself for that story. Reagan found it strange that Amy had a scornful smile at her face and still seemed a little mad with her own memories.

  

“She actually found out on Homecoming. Her boss sent her to interview the lesbian homecoming queens everybody were talking about. She didn’t know it was Karma and me. So a few seconds before going on air, she discovered one of them was Karma. I tried to pull her away and tell her I was Karma’s girlfriend, but she wouldn’t let me talk, she was all ‘I’m fine with Karma being gay, she’s not my daughter. But I do think you should downturn the sleepovers.’” she was imitating her own mom’s voice, which seemed to have a very distinct southern accent. She was trying not to laugh at her recollections and Reagan was openly chuckling at Amy’s performance. “It made me so mad. So when she asked Karma about where was her girlfriend, I marched up to them, put my crown and said ‘I’m right here, mother’. That exact moment we went on air and she was all ‘Lesbians…? Back to you, Steve’ and then she just left.” Amy finished her story quite proud of herself and her interpretation of her republican mother and that made Reagan laugh even harder.

  

“Dude, that’s… actually hilarious.” She admitted surprised with it and it how much the girl could be funny with her Academy Award Winning Performance. “Your mom must be a figure.”

  

“She’s something, all right.” she mocked rolling her eyes and then sobered up, “Well, it’s recent. Maybe she will come around. That’s what Shane says, anyways.”

  

“Who is Shane?”

  

“My friend. I think you can say he’s my GBF. He goes to Hester too. He’s the only one who also knows everything about faking my relationship,” she revealed and paused. She seemed to be thinking something over and she added somewhat unsurely: “This week he actually tried to help me figuring things out. He took me to a gay bar and made me try Syzzr.” She told her embarrassed, but still humored enough to smile at her own recollections.

  

“Oh my God.” Reagan exclaimed mortified for the girl, laughing nervously. She hid her face with her hands mockingly and showing only her eyes between her fingers, she asked with hesitation: “How did those things go?”

  

“He said that I was ‘aggressive and overly sexual’ at the bar.” Amy blushed profusely but still smiled at the thought of sharing it with someone who could related. Reagan smiled comprehensibly at her, “and… I had this coffee date with a cute girl and I screw it up by telling all about Karma to her. She was cool about it, though. Now Shane thinks I should tell Karma how I feel and that she might feels the same…” she trailed off, not sure about why she was telling this much to a girl she barely knew and not sure about what she should do about the whole deal with Karma.

  

“But you don’t think that’s the case?” Reagan pushed gently, her dark eyes searching incessantly in the green ones for some sort of clue. Sometimes she girl could be an open book with her dorkiness and easy smile. Other times she would be sad and would still be transparent, but a little more difficult to understand with so much sarcasm and venom in the way. There were even the times some bulky walls seemed to come up out of nowhere and laugh at your silly tries at understanding this complex young girl.

  

Amy sighed, biting her last fries. “It’s so complicated.”

  

“I’m a good listener.” She offered because she wanted to know. And she felt the other wanted to talk about.

  

“Why do you care so much?” she asked shyly. She seemed honestly curious, but also suspicious. “Don’t get me wrong. It feels good talking to you. It’s just strange. You are Lauren’s friend. She hates me. You could have told her about my feelings for Karma. She would blackmail me. You could have told anyone at school. But you didn’t. You are just… so nice to me and you don’t ask for anything back.” The whole concept of someone being nice to her seemed strange to her and Reagan tried not to smile at that, because she could definitely relate to it. “Why?”

  

There were not a simply answer to that. Saying the most forthcoming true about how the girl had not been out of her mind for reasons Reagan didn’t really wanted to dissect was not a option.

  

Amy kept staring at her, waiting for an explanation and again Reagan felt a pang somewhere inside of her. There were just something about that girl – she did not know what was – that made her want to be close to her. And her next answer would definitely help Shrimp Girl decide if she wanted to be near Reagan or not.

  

“I guess I just…” she started and then gulped not knowing what to say. She looked at the blonde’s eyes and they were soft and gentle, and for a moment Reagan left herself think (hope) that maybe Shrimps would want to know her just as much as Reagan wanted to know her. Taking a deep breath, she restarted:

 

“Well. I was twelve, almost thirteen. This girl, Becky, and I had swimming classes together and we walked home together and talked about anything. I told her things I hadn’t told anyone. I really liked her, you know. She was two years older than me, but she didn’t seem to care. There were also a boy who liked her but was mean to me because I was the smallest kid around. She actually fought him because of me. She was just so cute… Then things started get so confusing. I started seeing Becky as a girl. I stared at her with my mouth open, thinking she was the prettiest girl ever. Becky’d hold my hand and I’d almost faint. Her smile, God, was just… Anyways. I guess she realized my feelings – not that I was trying to hide –, because she just kissed me one day. Out of nowhere. It was my first kiss and hers too. It was wonderful, like in the books where there are butterflies and the world stops and all that shit. Then she smiled at me, went home and I waited for days until the other class. I thought I’d die from anxiety. I was making plans for us. And when I finally saw her… she was with the guy who bullied me. Kissing him. She told me she didn’t know if she liked boys or girls and that I was sort of a test. Turned out she didn’t liked me that way, just as friends.”

 

God. She hadn’t thought about Becky in _forever_. She was, in fact, one of her best memories – and she was, still, a shitty one. But the time had made it so nostalgic and lovely and not-so-hurtful.

 

Shrimp Girl listened carefully everything she said and was still staring at her, waiting for more. For maybe a conclusion. A moral lesson at the end of the fable. As if Reagan’s story would ease Amy’s torment or help her with it.

 

“Worst part of it?” she continued, smiling disdainfully at the situation. “It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve heard. Later I had worse, much worse. And all these times, because I move a lot, I didn’t have many friends to be by my side through the heartache. It sucked. Sure, I had a few colleagues at my schools and they would take me out and make me drink as much as I could and sometimes it would help me, but all I really wanted to do was talk and vent and feel like I was understood. Not just accepted or appreciated or anything like that, but to have someone who would have actually known what it was like to be where I was to make figuring out not so chaotic or theoretical as some friends with good intentions can make it sounds... And I might be crazy, but it seems to me you might need the same.” Reagan finished tentatively, looking up at the eyes that were gazing at her that whole time, her expression unreadable.

 

“So you’re saying there’s no way around it. The heartache is inevitable. I’ll end up like you.” She whispered bitterly and her eyes watered ever so slightly at its corners.

 

“Hey, there are worse things to end up like.” She said playfully, nervous about the reaction. That girl’s tears always made her feel too much. “I have no idea about how you’ll end up or if your best friend is like Becky or anything. But Shrimps. Correct if I’m wrong.” she proposed with a daring (and not really conscious) movement, taking the girl’s hand that was on the table between both of hers, “But it seems to me you’re already feeling your heart aching and in need of a friend who understand. You wouldn’t add me on facebook if you weren’t.”

 

The pupils’ of Shrimp Girl’s eyes dilated noticeably and her shoulders faltered seconds later. Reagan was sure the girl was going to cry, so she got up and sit on Amy’s side, taking her hand again (this time consciously), in what she hoped was a comfort gesture. 

 

“You’re not wrong.” She murmured and laid her head on Reagan’s shoulder tentatively at first, but then got herself comfortable when the older girl didn’t protest.  The DJ, on her part, was too shocked to have any reaction. Shrimp Girl did not strike her as very touchy feely person, so the fact she was freely touching Reagan amazed her. “What did you do to get over Becky?”

 

“Oh, you know,” she breathed deeply, thinking about her next words and how she had never had voiced them. “I was never really in love with her, I was twelve after all. It was an infatuation at best. It’s just felt so good to finally be able to feel what all the other girls were always talking about, to accept that I actually liked girls. It was a relief. An epiphany, you know? Like, WOW. I like girls and I like that I like girls. And I don’t know. My brain must’ve gotten fuzzy at the time because I thought all those good feelings were related to Becky, but it was actually two separate things…” Amy was completely motionless during Reagan’s little monologue and the brunette was afraid she had made a fool of herself with her rambling. “You must think I’m crazy.”

 

“No, it makes sense.” She reassured the other, tightening their joined hands. “You kept going to those swimming classes?”

 

“Yes, but just about a month. My father and I ended up moving abroad, so I never saw her again.”

 

“You lived abroad? Where?” Amy actually jumped at the thought and her head left Reagan’s shoulder, to the disappointment of the last one.

 

“France for almost two years.” she smiled at the excitement of the other girl. It was nice seeing her eyes gleaming again, even a little.

 

“I’m so jealous right now.” She admitted and Reagan shook her head; she was always the jealous one of people who had _homes_ and not just houses. “What was that like? Do you speak French?”

 

Reagan did, but not as well as Spanish. She told her all about her time in Europe and how difficult it was to adjust. Amy then told her all about her dislike for school and how she had long gave up adjusting to it. She preferred watching documentaries, she explained, and then they talked about movies and TV shows and Reagan was shocked about how many documentaries Amy had watched in such a short life and how many great TV shows – _with lesbians, mind you_ – the girl never watched it. She actually made a list for the girl and in return received her own list of documentaries to watch, so “she could have her view of the world expand” (Shrimps’ words).

 

Then they talked about music and whatever came up and asked for a pie to share, which end up all in Amy’s stomach since she was a fast eater. Reagan didn’t mind, she thought it was cute the guilty look on the girl’s face when she pointed out that she had thought they would share the piece. Amy ended up talking about her food habits and her preferences. Reagan already knew about shrimps and doughnuts. But she ended up discovering Amy’s allergies and a love for bacon almost as great as for shrimp.

 

The day become night and they had to leave. Reagan offered a ride home, since the girl had walked to the diner. Reagan also paid for their lunch saying it was only fair since she had a gig the night before – but in reality, it just felt right doing it.  It felt like an innocent date Reagan never had with their occasional handholding, the discovery of new things about each other and the awkward and unintentional flirting now and there.

 

It felt nice.

 

And it left Reagan wanting more than she should.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have so many things to say about this chapter and about where I want to take this story. But all I’m gonna say is: I’m insecure, people. I have many issues that years of therapy have not yet fixed. I need to hear someone say I’m not screwing things up. So please. Be that someone. (or be the someone that says I’m screwing everything, but you know. Be gentle.)


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, nomeiodoredemunho, you are a lifesaver. This chapter is for you, girl. 
> 
>  
> 
> Again. Not my first language. Not my characters.

**CHAPTER THREE:**

 

Feeling the wind tickling her skin, Reagan woke up startled. Her eyes immediately searched for her blanket just to find it wrapped around the small figure of Lauren, who slept silently – and warmly – at the left side of Reagan’s bed.

  

The DJ had forgot about her friend sleeping over during the night.

  

The blonde girl had appeared earlier at Reagan’s place swearing that, if she were left in her own place, she would end up killing Amy. The day before had been Lauren’s stepmother’s bridal shower and, according to Lauren, Shrimp Girl had ruined everything by being _“a spoiled little jealous brat”_. She had tried to push all of Lauren’s buttons during the day and even called the short girl a sociopath in front of all the guests. 

  

Then apparently, Shrimp Girl had destroyed a _thing_ called croquembouche. Which, really, was the fucking last straw for Lauren.

  

Thus, the morning after the shower disaster, Lauren had just showed up at Reagan’s asking the girl to blow up some steam – and by asking, you can understand dragging Reagan out of bed with much too straight for such a petite person. The both of them had run, ridden bikes and even swum a little. By the end of the morning, it was safe to say that Reagan had never exercised so much in her life.

  

As she just laid by the grass after all the exercise, thinking Death was coming take her to the other side due to all exhaustion, she listened as Lauren narrated all the events of Farrah’s shower and asked Reagan if she could sleep there so she wouldn’t have to face Amy and resist the temptation of killing the other blonde.

  

Reagan must have mumbled a yes at some point, because both girls had indeed spent Sunday together. Lauren had offended Amy a thousand times and then they had decided to watch _Modern Family_ over Thai food until they both had fallen sleep.

  

Thing was that Reagan remembered distinctively being covered when she had gone to bed, but it seemed her bedmate had stolen all of her blankets. And by the way Lauren had wrapped herself in the blankets it wasn’t like Reagan could just steal the blankets back without waking up the girl – and Lauren needed the sleep. She hadn’t outright said it, but Reagan could see that Lauren was emotionally exhausted.  She valued her family and having a stepsister who had such a low opinion of her and who had humiliated her in front of everyone had shaken Lauren up.

  

Therefore, she let Lauren sleeping and walked up until her window seat in the other side of the room. The windows was partially open and she felt her hair trembling around her face as she stared her empty street, her neighbors’ perfect gardens and the fading orange in the sky advertising the sunrise.

  

It reminded her the time a week before when she and Shrimp Girl had watched the sunset after one of Reagan’s gig.

  

The two of them had been hanging out regularly the last three weeks since their first non-date at the diner. Reagan had wanted to discover the city and tried to show the girl a world outside her _Karmy’s bubble_. They had once gone to Austin Film Festival and watched a movie and a conference with the movie’s screen player – and it was simply adorable how Shrimp Girl’s eyes twinkled the whole session. Reagan could not believe that the girl had live in Austin her whole life and had never gone to the Festival being such a cinephile.

  

Reagan had also decided to explore the famous 6th street and had taken Shrimp Girl twice.  They had visited its art galleries and had gone to a restaurant of Mexican food, where they talked for hours about nothing and everything that came to mind. Those were the moments she could see the girl Shrimps were behind all the high school drama. The funny, sarcastic, adorable and sometimes dorky fifteen-years-old whose maturity floated between a ten-year-old and a twenty-five-year-old. The sometimes shy, sometimes too sure of herself blonde girl who seemed oblivious to the way Reagan’s eyes lingered a little longer than they should at Amy’s pinkish mouth. The insecure and occasionally needy teenager – but way too proud to admit – whose hand sometimes would tentatively reach for Reagan’s for support. The unabashedly sexy woman who walked around unaware of the attention she draw for herself and danced in _such_ a way that Reagan had to change her own panties the time they had gone to a club together.

  

After each encounter, Reagan dropped Shrimp Girl at the girl’s house and the blonde kissed the DJ’s cheek _way too slowly_ – her perfume lingering around for some time after her departure.  And after each encounter, Reagan gripped her steering wheel strongly thinking she was fucked.

  

She was in way too deep. Already too involved.

  

It was getting harder to stay close to girl.

  

Worse than that. It was getting impossible to stay away.

 

* * *

 

 

As Reagan stopped by her blue locker at Hester to pick some books she would need that day, she was surprised when a voice not too friendly asked her from behind the locker’s door. “Lauren slept at your house?” she would recognized that _cute_ irritated tone anywhere. Reagan smiled, putting one book at her black bag.

  

“Well. Hello to you too, Shrimps.” She said mockingly, shutting the locker to find a very angry Shrimp Girl by her side. The green eyes would become almost grey when she got annoyed, and the younger girl was even pouting at the DJ. “And yes, she did. You know she’s my friend since day one. Why that face?”

  

It was not a secret that she was friends with Lauren and Amy. Both girls disapproved the other’s friendship loudly (“She wants all that’s mine!”, Lauren had whined when she had heard the news), but she never heard any of it.  

  

“You never invited me to your place.” Shrimp Girl admitted pouting even harder, dropping her head in the locker besides Reagan’s. 

  

“Are you jealous?” she arched her eyebrow, smiling slyly and also dropping her head in her own locker, so both of them could look into each other’s eyes, their faces very close one to another.

  

“ _Noooooo_.” Shrimp Girl whined. Denial looked delightful on her and Reagan resisted her first impulse to kiss the girl senseless. “I just can’t believe you had a sleepover with Little Devil and you never even invited me over for coffee.” She explained trying to sound reasonable, but coming out as a jealous and whiny kid. “Besides, you didn’t even answer my messages when you were with her and I spent my whole Sunday wanting to talk to you about _Orange_ and not being able to.”

  

“Ownnn.” Reagan smirked pleasantly and pinched Amy’s cheek lightly. “You are so cute when you’re jealous, Shrimps.” 

  

The younger girl tried to look angry at the remark, but as the DJ’s smile grow, she couldn’t help but smile too. That actually happened a lot: the smile of one would automatically provoke the smile of the other – their joy always so infectious it was impossible to be anything but content around each other.

  

“Anyways,” Shrimps said, breaking the silence but not the stare between them. She studied carefully Reagan’s face and suddenly the blonde’s visage became serious and possibly insecure. “I need to talk to you about something.” She mumbled looking around to find some students watching them with curiosity. The problem of being part of the school’s favorite couple was the lack of privacy. “Maybe we could go somewhere else?”

  

“It has to be now? I have English in five…” and she would gladly skip class to be with Shrimp Girl, but inside she knew she could not keep doing this to herself.

 

She need to put space between them. Her little crush for the girl was starting to became too much.

  

“Maybe we can talk later? At your place?” Amy suggested, winking at Reagan and the older girl felt her resolution fade away as she gazed at the green orbs staring back at her expectantly.

  

_Damn._

  

“I don’t know if we are friends enough for that…” she teased with a half-smile. Shrimp Girl feigned an exaggerated gasp, putting her hand above her heart.

  

“I’m offended now, Rae.”

  

Reagan was ready to rebuttal Shrimps when a third person appeared out of nowhere, wrapping her arm around the blonde girl’s waist.

  

The other half of Karmy.

  

_Urgh._

  

“Amy, sweetie…?” she whispered tentatively, interrupting the dialogue. Reagan watched with the corner of her eye as Karma’s hand was placed in Amy’s waist and she felt an impulsive need to fly away from there.

  

“Karma, hey.” Shrimp Girl seemed half-surprised by the appearance and unexpected fondness; – _why Red was all of sudden the dutiful girlfriend, anyways? Logan/Liam/Leo /Lee/whoever wasn’t even around_ – and half-pleased with the attention. “Er…” she tried to say but the redhead interrupted her with a kiss at the corner of the blonde’s mouth. 

  

Shrimp Girl blushed and Reagan tried to look away as her heart withered.

  

Forget fly away. The DJ just wanted the floor to swallow her whole.

  

“Karma, this is Reagan. Rea, this is Karma.” Amy introduced them politely and Reagan risked a look in the redhead’s direction, forcing a smile to her lips.

  

“Can I steal my girlfriend for five minutes?” Karma said loudly and rather rough, ignoring Reagan’s tentative smile and already pushing Shrimps by the arm. Against her better judgment, the DJ arched her perfect eyebrow at the obvious demonstration of jealousy.

  

“Sure. I have English anyway. I’ll text the details, Shrimps.” She mumbled with her voice trailing off at the end, but the girls were already walking away.

  

_Don’t mind me, Carmen,_ she thought venomously as she took a minute to watch the so-called couple as they seemed engaged in a heated discussion some feet from there. Karma seemed upset and snappy whilst Shrimp seemed even more upset and defensive. 

  

That was strange. That relationship was even weirder than Reagan had initially thought.

 

 One more _pro_ at her imaginary list of pros/cons to be away from Shrimp Girl.

 

* * *

“So what we’ll be doing this weekend?” Matty asked during their lunch as he and Haley sat in front of Reagan in a table at the dining hall.

  

“This weekend is mine and Jack’s anniversary. Don’t count us in.” Haley confessed sheepishly, her chubby cheeks becoming a little rosy. “Two years dating.”

  

As Matt asked Haley about their plan’s for the anniversary, Reagan’s IPhone vibrated. A message from Amy.

**Shrimp Girl:** _Sorry about this morning. Karma is afraid about what will people think if I am seen with you._

  

Not wanting to be the friend who is constantly on her cellphone, she quickly typed if Karma was on drugs – which she honestly didn’t doubt, because she had heard about the girl’s parents – and said to her friends:

  

“At least one of us can have a healthy long-term relationship! Congrats, Hales.” The girls high-fived over the table smiling at each other. It was a running joke among their group that everyone but Haley and Jack had bad lucky in relationship. Turning to Matt, Reagan remembered him: “I’ll have that catering event the whole weekend at Dallas, so...”

  

Besides her job as DJ, Reagan had got two weeks before a job as a cater-waiter with Nadia, Haley’s best friend. Being a DJ was awesome, but it didn’t paid that well. So cater-waiter had been just what she needed since she wanted to be able to live by herself after graduation and saving money was crucial.

  

Her phone vibrated again.

  

**Shrimp Girl:** _She says they will think I’m cheating on her with you. She’s crazy. But it’s better if you and I act more discreet from now on anyways._

Reagan blinked as she first read the message.

_What the fuck._

Maybe if the girl had slapped her would not surprise her as much – and worse: it would not make her chest ache in that familiar way that only rejection could make her chest throb.

  

She continuously blinked, unresponsive, her IPhone in her hand.

  

“Don’t I feel loved?” Matt questioned ironically and oblivious to Reagan’s turmoil. “I guess I’ll go to the movies with my little brother, then.”

  

“You should, there’s a kid’s movie my sis is talking about like crazy for a week… I don’t remember the name.” Haley trailed off, furrowing her brow ponderingly as she tried to remember. “Oh! I know! Big Hero 6!”

  

**Reagan:** _Are you serious?_

“I want to see that! Seems awesome.” Reagan exclaimed trying to sound genuinely animated and involved in the conversation as her trembling fingers typed that _lesbian can be friends with other lesbians_. She lightly pressed send. “Kids’ movie are one of my favorites.” She said smiling falsely and hoping her voice wasn’t giving away her sudden need to be anywhere but at Hester.

 

She felt her feet anxiously tapping at the floor in an imaginary beat as she looked to her phone, waiting for a response because she could not just accept that Shrimp Girl would throw away their recent bond – which she intimately _knew_ that the other girl felt it was special – _just_ because Karma had whined about their friendship. 

“I love the Disney Classics.” Haley was saying while not realizing what her friend was going through. “But I’ve seen the recent ones so many times with my sisters that once I dreamed I was Nemo and I were in a balloon with an guy who looked like Scorsese, lost in the space with an android… but then the space were only a kid’s room and I were the kid’s deprecated toy.” Haley dramatically told them, doing funny faces. She sighed for effect. “It was horrible.”

Reagan’s phone vibrated again and her heart actually stopped for a second.

**Shrimp Girl:** _She says we are too friendly._

 

Fuck what _Carmen_ says, she wanted to argue. You cannot just do what she wants – she needed to say. Instead, she just took a deep breath so she would not lose her cool for a girl who obviously did not _give a shit_.

  

“You scare me.” Matt said after a pause in which he had stared at Haley with his mouth open. Reagan just _tried_ to smile at their silliness, choosing to ignore Shrimp Girl and all the Karmy Drama. “But I too love all the Disney Classics. We should do a marathon one of these days.”

  

Her phone vibrated at her pocket. _For fuck’s sake._ Couldn’t the girl give her a break?

 

**Shrimp Girl:** _I just don’t want to upset her, Rae. We just don’t have to talk at school, but we can still hang out outside and have our phone calls. Nothing has to change._

Reagan resisted the need to roll her eyes at the message. 

Haley was ecstatic at the idea of the marathon: “We totally should! But first we have to do the Harry Potter one and Hunger Games one and Star Wars…”

**Reagan:** _Whatever_ **.**

Because really. _What more could someone say_?, she thought.

“Stars Wars, really, Hales?” Reagan questioned with an arched eyebrow, a sly smile in Haley’s direction. “And you say Matty is the nerd.” She teased as she felt her phone vibrating once again. She ignored it.

**Shrimp Girl:** _Rae, please._

 

“Don’t forget Lord of the Rings. It’s unacceptable that Reagans doesn’t love it.” Matt said actually serious.

  

“Pfffffffff.” Reagan’s lips made the playful sound as her IPhone once again demanded her attention. She looked it over curiously:

**Shrimp Girl:** _Are we still on later?_

“If I am to accept your love for Johanna Mason and Katniss Everdeen, you have to accept my love for Frodo and Sam.” Haley informed her pompously, but still serious somewhat.

“At least my OTP looks sexy together.” Reagan said sassily as she absentmindedly typed a passive-aggressive message on her phone:

 

**Reagan:** _I don’t know. We better consult Karma first._

 

“I can’t really win that discussion.” Haley admitted shrugging just before the bell reverberated through the school indicating the end of the lunch.

 

* * *

 

 

Later that day, Reagan was in her bed already in her pajamas – if you could call her way too tight cotton tee and short pajamas, that is – drawing for a school project due next week. Or honestly _trying_ to draw. Her mind was too fussy to picture whatever she could try to compose with her fingers and she was simply letting her hands taking charge of the situation.

  

And her fingers were furiously delineating a unknown form at the paper whilst her mind travelled to earlier in the day when Shrimp Girl had so easily dismissed her after a little quarrel with her stupid, stupid, stupid _girlfriend_ – and _for fucking out loud_ they weren’t even _real_ girlfriends.

 

 She scratched repeatedly over the same lines, making it really dark and dense, as her heart made a nasty flip thinking about her own imprudence for getting close to that girl. She had known. _God_. She had _fucking known_ how it was going to end.  But still. She let herself put aside her instincts. She stripped off her thicker skin, the one she used to protect herself from the heartache. All willingly.

And all to collapse.

  

_But fuck Shrimps and Red_. And their own little bubble nobody else were welcomed in. It had been only three weeks of a friendship of some sorts and it wasn’t like it was going to be the biggest deception Reagan had ever faced – actually it was not even close.

  

And if Shrimp Girl thought she was going to be satisfied in being friends whenever was convenient for her and only her, she could forget about Reagan altogether. The DJ had spent her teenagers years building her self-steam – something that was _fucking too hard_ for a teenager girl without a mother, a latina girl in US and a proud and out lesbian – for a confused fifteen-year-old treated her as an afterthought.

  

She was better than that.

  

And fuck _Karmy_ for make her doubt it for a second.

  

“Reagan, honey?” her father knocked at her door and opened it partially, interrupting her train of thought. “There’s a friend of yours here. Can I send her up?”

  

“Err. Sure.” She said not paying fully attention on her father’s words, but on the draw that her own fingers had done without her informed consent. The black and wavy hair, the deep and troublesome eyes and the full pouty mouth so much like her own.

  

Her mother. 

  

_Fuck._

  

“Hey.” Shrimp Girl’s timid voice interjected from the doorway, making Reagan look up startled. The blonde girl seemed upset with her arms embracing herself and her eyes somewhat apprehensive. 

  

_The girl got some nerve._

  

“What are you doing here?” she asked fully aware of how aggressive her tone were, closing her sketchbook and sitting up straighter. When the younger girl did not answered, she raised one eyebrow evilly. “Did Karma let you come? Is she downstairs? Is she outside waiting?”

  

“I’m sorry, Reagan.” Shrimp mumbled with such sincerity in her demeanor that her eyes were shining with some quivering tears that refused to fall, and once again, Reagan could feel her own protective walls trembling down, her resolution running far, far away whenever that girl was near.

  

_Damn it_.

  

“Come in. Close the door.” She ended up saying because truth was she had never had a chance when Shrimp Girl was concerned. “Sit down.”

 

 Amy sat in her bed, immediately in front of her – the girl had _no respect_ for Reagan’s personal space – reaching for the older girl’s hands and interweaving their fingers so naturally it seemed they were doing it for years and not just weeks.

  

“I’m so, so sorry, Rea.” She apologized looking directly in the older girl’s eyes so she could see the sincerity reflected in those green orbs. “These days have been fucked up. My mom’s shower was horrible. Lauren is like her favorite daughter now. She even made Lauren her maiden of honor. You also prefer Lauren.” Reagan opened her mouth to rebut that, but Amy stopped her with a hand up on air. “It’s all right.” She said delicately and a little defeated. She shrugged lamely, her eyes on their hands as if ashamed of her next words: “I sometimes feel like I only have Karma. Like. I’m _only_ favorite to her. So when she asked me to be more discreet, I said I would. Because I don’t know how to say no to her.”

  

“Maybe if you treated your mother or me the way you treat Karma, you would feel like we like you more.” She told Shrimps still a little emotionless, trying as hard as she could not to let her defense melt as easily as it wanted. “It’s a two-way street, Amy. Lauren can be mean and petty, yes. But she doesn’t treat me as an afterthought. I feel as I’m important to her.” And if she felt fragile and naked with that unconscious admission, she tried not to make a big deal out of it by not facing the other girl.

  

“You are important to me.” Amy said confidently, putting a finger underneath Reagan’s chin and raising the girl’s face gingerly but ever so firmly. Her eyes searched for the dark ones, desperate for a connection she knew they had. “Reagan, we only started to hang out the last three weeks and when you didn’t answer me this afternoon I thought…” she swallowed up her words, not knowing what could describe with accuracy the turmoil of feelings she felt earlier. “Nobody became so important to me in so little time.” She whispered so slightly Reagan almost didn’t hear, but she did and her heart jumped so shakily in her chest she could swear Shrimp Girl could overhear it.

  

“Yeah?” she whimpered unsure, her lips forming a shy smile.

  

“Of course, silly.” She said with a cute smile, kissing Reagan’s cheek and laying her head on the girl’s shoulder, a place she had grown used to. She breathed in Reagan’s scent, feeling the soft skin in the girl’s neck with the tip of her nose. “I may not know how to show you this. And you’re right.” She whispered, “I have to work on my relationship with Karma and balance it with my other relationship. But please, Rae.” She pleaded as she hugged Reagan by the waist. Her voice was little, sweet and unsure and she squeezed the girl for dear life. “Don’t ever doubt that I like you.”

  

“I kind like you too.” She uttered lowly not trusting her voice. The girl had her nose in her fucking neck; she was dying to not let her body shudder.

  

_For Christ’s sake._

 

 “More than Lauren?” Amy teased and Reagan felt the outline of a smile in the girl’s lips by her neck and playfully pushed the blonde away for her.

“Don’t push your luck.” She said lightheartedly as Shrimps pouted at her. She chuckled and stood up, not wanting to be so near the other girl. “So, my father and I always order pizza on Thursdays, are you up for that?” she asked as her hands searched for her IPhone on her desk. Amy just stared at her expressionlessly. “ _Right_. Dumb question. So, pepperoni is all right? ” She mumbled as she started walking around the room, distracted by the phone in her hands.

  

“I’m not picky.” She said slowly, her eyes travelling up Reagan’s body discreetly as her cheeks blushed. “Sooooo. That’s your room.” She stated obviously.

  

“Well. It’s certainly not the kitchen.”

  

“A girl could be easily mistaken by the amount of chocolate and empty glasses.” She mumbled quietly, looking around. Reagan’s room was a decent size, definitely bigger than hers was (Lauren probably had been jealous about that). The walls were painted a dark gray with some purple details. The wall behind her bed had some weird artsy in different purple and gray tones that reminded Amy of the crazy lights of some clubs. On the bed, she had some plush dolls ( _really_ ) over too many cushions, some sketchbooks and school’s material she seemed to have been working on before the interruption. By her bed-table, there were an Ipod dock _retro_ style, a yellow bedside lamp and a book in Spanish.

  

On the others walls, there were posters of some bands Amy did like and posters of bands she had never heard of. They were all chaotically hanging above a big desk where it laid Reagan’s MacBook logged in Tumblr, some empty mugs and glasses. There were some pictures framed by her desk, some of people Amy had never seen and one of Reagan and the friends she used to hang out at Hester – a gothic girl and a nerd boy. They seemed to be at bowling with another two teenagers and they all had grins in their faces.

  

As Amy turned to look at the other side of the room, she surprised herself to see Reagan staring at her from the bed. “So, do you like my room?”

  

“It’s awesome.” She confessed still gazing over the black shelf with books in Spanish and English, many DVDs, videogames, CDs, vinyl records and even some miniatures of Disney’s characters. “I can’t believe you have it all organized and so well-decorated in a little over a month.”

  

“What can I say? I do spend a lot of time on Pinterest.” She shrugged. “Let’s wait downstairs? The pizza will arrive in any minute.”

  

“Those are the magic words!”

 

* * *

Two pizzas and three episodes of _The 100_ later (it was supposed to be only one, but who can resist?), Reagan and Amy were both laying in the sofa on opposite sides, their feet meeting in the middle under a blanket Reagan had provided. Shrimp’s feet were warm while Reagan’s felt too cold against the blonde’s pants.

  

“So, Shrimps.” She said after switching off her television. The room was dark except for the lamp at Amy’s side. “What was that you wanted to talk to me about?”

  

Shrimp Girl sat up straight, staring at the other girl seriously and a little embarrassed. “You first have to promise me not to judge me.” She asked, her eyes shining with insecurity and Reagan felt an impetus to comfort her, but she held it back.

  

“Of course I’m not going to judge you. You still don’t know me, Amy?”

  

“Just making sure.” She breathed in and out a couple of times and Reagan’s mind was starting coming up with all kinds of crazy ideas to what could make Shrimps so nervous. She had never seen the girl so edgy. “Karma asked me to have a threesome with her and Liam Booker.”  She said breathily, mending an “I said yes.” As Reagan only stared at Amy blankly, she felt the need to add: “We are doing it on Saturday.”

  

“What?” she asked barely audible while sitting up.

  

Whatever she was expecting _that_ was not it.

  

Shrimp Girl then explained that Liam Booker – the guy in Reagan’s Art’s Class that only made crappy pieces of so-called art – and Karma wanted to sleep with each other, but the guy supposedly felt guilty with sleeping with a girl who had a girlfriend. Therefore, Karma had _the Century's Most Brilliant Idea_ and suggested a threesome with the said girlfriend. The said girlfriend had first said no, but after the crazy GBF of _so-alleged_ girlfriend convinced her that the threesome was a big signal of Red being curious and unsure of her sexuality she decided to do it. As if a _ménage a trois_ could be the perfect way of discovering that Karma actually liked girls and not the boy she wanted to bang _so fucking bad_ that she actually asked her best friend to have a fucking threesome with them.

  

Was she the only one who was seeing how completely fucked up the whole idea was?

  

Sometimes she wondered, she _actually_ wondered what that lunch lady put on Hester’s food.

  

She was going to start taking her own sandwich to school, thank you very much.

  

“Rea, please.” Amy interrupted her thoughts with a hand at her arm. “Say something.”

  

Reagan then looked Amy in the eyes, just in that moment realizing that the story she had just heard was not about some crazy strangers at school, but about _her_ Shrimps. The girl that made her day an emotional rollercoaster and when she had thought that they had reached the end of it, she was trying to take Reagan for another fucking ride.

  

A ride where not only Reagan’s feelings would go high and low and high again and low again, but – _worse_ – Shrimps’ own world would crash on the floor after it.

  

She just knew it.

  

“What do you want me to say?” she said retreating herself for the far end of the couch. She suddenly felt small and powerless and with such a need to cry, she just wanted the other girl to go away. “You’ve made your mind.”

  

_And if you could please go so I can drown myself in my bathtub thinking of you having sex with a guy, I’d thank you very much_ – she wanted to complete, but she said nothing.

  

“I just want to talk to you about it.” Shrimps shrugged and _goddamn her_ for sounding so endearing and needy when she was talking about fucking two persons. At the same time.

 

“Well. Do you want your first time to be with two people who just want to be with each other and added you as a courtesy?” she asked trying to sound thoughtful, but she realized her voice came out too harsh as Amy fell behind as if she had been slapped.

  

“You said you wouldn’t judge me.” Shrimp Girl said with a hurt and betrayed expression.

  

“I am not. I’m just making sure you’re thinking everything through.” She quickly said, not wanting Amy to be upset with her, even though she was genuinely upset with the girl. “There are others ways of knowing if Karma likes you that doesn’t includes you seeing the girl you like having sex with a guy or you having sex with one.” Reagan explained as kindly as she could, desperately looking into Shrimp’s eyes in search of that glimpse of a change of mind.

  

“I won’t need to touch him. Karma will be in the middle of us. We’re going to be like the bread to a Karma sandwich.” Her tone was actually excited and her words sounded rehearsed.  Reagan raised an eyebrow at those terms, not recognizing the blonde in them: “Shane’s words.”

  

“Sill, Amy.” She insisted patiently, “She doesn’t have the right to ask you to do that. And you don’t have to do it.”

  

“I’m doing it because I want to.” She asserted and Reagan could see the girl was starting to get annoyed, looking exactly as a teenager who is not having her way, who is not being pet on the head.

  

“Bullshit.” Reagan said, also getting annoyed at that moment. Their voices were louder than before and they were actually in each other’s face, their eyes glaring heatedly at the others. “You just said you don’t know how to say no to her.”

  

“I said no first.” Shrimps exclaimed, seemed offended by the veiled accusation in Reagan’s words. “I changed my mind when I realized I wanted it. I want Karma to want me.” She explained in a paused manner, trying to make Reagan see the importance of Karma’s suggestion to her. All the doors it could open to them as a couple. It was a good thing and she didn’t understand why Reagan could not see it.

  

“Yeah, that’s been well stablished for a month now.” She mumbled under her breath, tiredly, returning to her far end on the couch. She felt like just saying good luck and asking Shrimps to leave.

  

“Look, Reagan.” Amy started, getting close to Reagan. Her voice had softened and she had a dreamy expression and it _fucking_ hurt the older girl seeing her that way. “I needed that kiss to realize that I love Karma. This is what Karma may need to realize what she wants. That’s why I will go through with it.”

  

“That’s insane. It will be your first time and you deserve more.” She whispered looking down at her lap, “You deserve more than just crumbs.” She said more confidently looking at the girl’s eyes and seeing that wistful and beautiful gleam that only being in love could put there and it make her want to scream because she knew that gleam would not be there after the threesome and she wanted to preserve it so, _so much_. “You deserve everything, Amy.”

  

_If only she could see it._

  

“But I’ll support you whatever your decision is.” She said after a pause and Shrimp Girl smiled openly before hugging her close, her scent flooding Reagan’s nostrils as the DJ wrapped her arms around the blonde.

  

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She hummed and Reagan chucked at her, still enveloped in the longstanding hug:

  

“Not that I’m not having fun and all, but it’s getting late.” She said, stepping away and getting up from the sofa. “Tomorrow I’ll have to go to Dallas to an event we’re catering the whole weekend.”

  

“You won’t be at school tomorrow?” Shrimps pouted, also getting up and searching around for her shoes as Reagan turned on the lights.

  

“Sorry, but no. I’ll see you on Monday, all right? Try not to miss me too much.” She arched her perfect shaped eyebrow sassily, taking things back to a playful side so it would not hurt as much.

  

“That will be impossible.” She said honestly and Reagan could not help but smile sadly. “Can I call you?”

  

“I’ll be very busy, Shrimps.” she only told her that as a way of baffle the girl; she could use the weekend to put a much need space between them. “And you’ll be having hot sex with Bella and Edward, so…” she added sarcastically and even a little cruelly. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was still Friday, the first day of the event Reagan and Nadia were working on Dallas, and the two of them were on a much-needed break outside the party they were catering. It was crazy inside with all the rich old guys and their perverted comments and sexual innuendo, and it would only get worse as drunker they would get.

  

So as Nadia smoked her tenth cigarette of the night, Reagan tried to calm down Shrimp Girl’s nerves by message as the girl was having a nervous breakdown in Austin not knowing what to wear on the threesome ( _“you’ll look good in anything, Shrimps, but you should definitely look smoking hot in black lingerie”)._

 

“Girlfriend?” Nadia asked curiously, sending a sassy look in her way. Reagan looked at her confused by the question. “The person you keep checking.” 

  

“No.” she said, “No girlfriend.” She mumbled shaking her head, smiling somewhat sadly. “Just a… friend.”

  

“Yeah, I have one of those.” The girl winked at her knowingly, puffing some smoke through her mouth.

  

“What is that supposed to mean?”

  

“Friend with benefits.” Nadia said as if it was obvious, putting out her cigarette. As Reagan faced her stunned, she chucked: “No?”

  

“No.” she exclaimed too loud. “Just friends.” She stated, her face blushing a little and Nadia openly laughed at that. “Really!” she reiterate, also laughing, but with a condescending tone. She completed timidly, shrugging: “She likes someone else, so.”

  

“Girl, life’s too short to chase someone who’s chasing someone else.” Nadia said seriously taking Reagan’s IPhone from the girl’s hand and switching it off and putting on her own pocket. “I’ll give it to you when we return to Austin.” Reagan’s sighed already missing her phone, but knowing inside it was actually for the better. 

  

“Now let’s make a deal.” Nadia kept talking all bubbly and cheery “Next time we go out, I’ll introduce you to a hot friend of mine you won’t be able to resist.”

  

“Dude.” She laughed at the girl’s silliness. Nadia just stared at her expectantly, waiting for an answer and, by the smile at her face, she would not accept a ‘no’. “Well then. Deal.” They shook their hands.

 

* * *

 

 

On Monday morning, Reagan finally had arrived home in Austin after the most strenuous weekend – but also the most well paid, so she was not exactly in the mood to bitch about the work she had done.

  

Nadia had given her a ride home and returned the girl’s phone with the promise that the girl would not run after someone undeserving of her attention. Reagan only rolled her eyes at the good intentions and naivety of her friend.

  

_If only._

 

 Putting her IPhone to charge in her bathroom, she took her working clothes off and took the most prolonged bath she could. She felt the hot water attenuating the knots on her back and her muscles became less tense as she washed her purple hair slowly with her preferred shampoo and lathered her body with her dearer fragrance.

  

After the well deserving bath, she dressed herself in her favorite pajamas and, completely forgetting about her IPhone at her bedside table, she slept for some hours without having dreams.

  

As she finally woke up, it was already dark outside and her hand automatically reached for her phone on her right side. Her eyes went wide not because of the time, but because of the amount of notifications she had accumulated on those days offline.

  

She first clicked on her personal messaged, first reading them uninterestingly and then with surprised by the mysterious content of the recent ones from some friends from Hester:

  

**Lauren:** _Third place at the dancing contest! Guess Harvey wasn’t as bad as I thought._

 

  **Hales** : _Did I forgot my jacket in your car? I can’t find it anywhere._

 

  **Shrimp Girl:** _Everything went wrong. Or right. I don’t know. I really need to talk to you. Call me if you catch a break?_

**Matty:** _Just watched Big Hero 6 with my brother. You just HAVE TO see it. I’ll even watch it again with you._

**Shrimp Girl:** _You said you’re going to came back on Monday. It’s Monday. Where are you?_

**Hales:** _What the fuck is happening? Call me._

  

**Lauren:** _Have you seen school’s tumblr? Are you okay? Do you want me to kill Karmy?_

  

**Shrimp Girl:** _I didn’t know she was going to pull that off. I am so sorry, Rae. Please talk to me. Call me._

**Matty:** _Are you okay? School’s crazy. Haley is freaking. Call us._

**Lauren:** _I’m starting to get worried. Call me until the end of the day or I’m calling the cops. That’s not a fucking joke._

**Shrimp Girl:** _Are you ignoring me? I had nothing to do with it. I swear._

**Shrimp Girl:** _Please, Rae. Just talk to me._

  

_A girl can’t spend three days away that when she comes back she doesn’t understand anything_ – Reagan thought humorously, rereading some messages and still not having a clue about them. What were they worried about? Had she not told them about working the whole weekend? Her own father had not been worried about her, so it could not be only her going offline.

  

Then her eyes glazed over Lauren’s words again: _Have you seen school’s tumblr? Are you okay? Do you want me to kill Karmy?_

Quickly skwekling for School’s Tumblr – she did not follow that – she entered the blog only to find an image of the Shrimp Girl and Red cut in half and a text under it:

 

**The real reason behind Karmy breakup**

**By Vashti Nadira**

_As some of Hester’s students and this Tumblr’s readers had already suspected in previous posts, the reason everyone’s favorite couple called it quits are far dirtier than Karmy tried to let on in our earlier interview._

_And who thinks this is about the threesome with Liam Booker is severely wrong, according to an exclusive interview with Karma herself._

_Our beloved homecoming queen told us the threesome was only a last and desperate attempt to make the couple’s relationship work after a –_ be prepared, reader! _– measureless crisis initiated a month ago when Amy started to feel attracted to a mysterious new senior student._

_Some of you may have seen the out and proud lesbian with purple hair.  Karma told us that what started as an innocent curiosity for an older girl soon became a hot affair between Amy and this girl whose name is Reagan._

_Karmy tried to maintain an open relationship for a while so Amy could explore her other side, according to Karma, but it became impossible to maintain two demanding relationships. Asked if Amy made a choice between her and this Reagan, Karma merely smiled and said that only Amy could answer that and once again, she ensured us that the break-up was completely amicable._

_Sought for an interview, Amy was not found._

  

Reagan read the post and reread it – her eyes and her brain and actually all of her cells not wanting to believe what she was reading.

 

**_What. The. Fuck._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Honestly, I didn’t like this chapter at all. As I said, I really, really, REALLY struggled to write some parts of it. I am sorry if it is crappy, but I did do my best and I’ll try to be better next time. There’re some things I need to say, through:
> 
>  
> 
> 1) At 1x07 of Faking It, Karma didn’t hesitate to say that Amy was a sex addicted, so it didn’t seem OOC writing her saying Amy had an affair with the other lesbian in school; 
> 
>  
> 
> 2) I’m trying to go along with the episodes, but I do not feel obligated to all of its details. From now on, the story will be a little different from the show; 
> 
>  
> 
> 3) I usually answer all reviews by dm (you guys check your inbox!). But a guest asked me if I’m Brazilian and didn’t leave her name or anything, so I’m answering here: Yes, I am. Since it seems you are too, come talk to me (it can be in Portuguese!). Did you see my profile or did you figure out by my writing? I’m so curious now… Btw, thanks to all the guests that left reviews on the last chapters. You guys are incredible and so sweet I want to kiss each one of your lovely cheeks. 
> 
>  
> 
> 4) I really like the idea of Reamy or Reagan’s friends exchanging messages or writing posts on tumblr and I want to incorporate those different types of media. It may get confusing sometimes and I’d like you guys to tell me so if it happens so I can stop being crazy; 
> 
>  
> 
> 5) For those of you who celebrate it, have a happy Easter! 
> 
>  
> 
> 6) Next chapter, Reagan will face Karma about the accusations. Dum, dum, dum. 
> 
>  
> 
> 7) I’ll never again write an A/N this big, I promise.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A/N: It's been a while since I last updated. I am so, so, SO sorry for that. Things have been somewhat crazy lately and I was stuck into a major writer's block. I hope, however, that you will think this was worth waiting for. : ) And I promise I will try and work on return to my weekly updates.
> 
> I do not have words for how wonderful everyone has been. Thank you all for the reviews and kudos and the bookmarks (?). You girls are truly awesome and the reason I keep writing this. This is dedicated to you all.
> 
> Same disclaimers as before.

**CHAPTER FOUR:**

Shrimp Girl's neighborhood was completely silent when Reagan's truck parked outside the Raudenfeld-Cooper's household.

It had been just a few hours since the purple haired girl had read Hester's Tumblr about  _Karmy's_  breakup. At first, she could not believe her eyes. She had read and reread that post and refreshed the page a thousand times in hope that someone had deleted it. But it had been useless. That fucking interview had not gone anywhere and that ridiculous picture of the said  _couple_  – Photoshop manipulated to be cut in half – was now forever printed in Reagan's brain.

She first had called Lauren to know if the girl knew something about it. She didn't. They talked for some minutes trying to figure out what could possible had happened between the _power couple_ , but the only conclusion they had agreed on was that Hester was a fucked up place fulfilled with fucked up people and that Karma was the most fucked up of all.

_Which was no small achievement_ , if you think about it.

The girl had lied her way through a false homosexual relationship for more than two months only to be popular and now she was lying about the reasons of an alleged break-up, not caring one little bit about her best friend's reputation in the whole process.

That was the definition of fucked up in Reagan's dictionary.

It was so screwed up that Reagan was worried about the state of mind of the said best friend in all of this. She had seen the expectation in Shrimps' eyes before the threesome. She had seen the way her green eyes had twinkled dreamily while talking about the possibility of Karma liking her back and the silly and almost imperceptible smile that had ghosted her rosy lips when Amy thought about it. Her face had actually lighted up in such an innocent and beautiful way just talking about her high expectations of Karma loving her back and now…

_Now._

Now Reagan could guess things had not gone in the way Shrimps had hoped.

And everyone knows how the saying goes:  _the higher you climb, the harder you fall._

Reagan felt her insides quivering only thinking about from how high Shrimps had fallen that day.

Therefore, she drove herself to Shrimp Girl's place and sat outside for a moment, thinking over her next step. She certainly knew she should just try and stay away from the blonde girl. Her friendship with Amy was already  _too much_  to Reagan and certainly  _not enough_  to Amy and nobody needed to be a genius to know who would be hurt at the end of that equation.

On the other side,  _who was she kidding?_  Only knowing Shrimp Girl could be alone in her bedroom and suffering had Reagan feeling a crushing need to be there for the girl. To just put her arms around Shrimps and hold her tight until her pain would go away.

As much as the DJ wanted to believe otherwise, she really had no choice. She  _had_  to see the girl. She could not just go away.

So Reagan called Amy's number from the car, waiting for the girl to pick up, "Hey Shrimps." She said in a happy little tone as soon as the girl answered.

"Reagan, God." the blonde girl exclaimed from the other side. At first, her voice was seamlessly relieved, but then it got irritated, "Where were you? I've been calling you and texting and-"

Reagan interrupted her before she could keep on her rambling. "Look outside your window," she requested watching Shrimps' window from her car. She saw as the curtains from the girl's bedroom were opened at the second floor and Amy appeared. The blonde looked confused but as soon as she spotted Reagan's truck, she smiled.

"Hello, Shrimps!" The DJ said waving at the girl with feigned unpretentiousness, as if appearing unannounced at her door late at night was completely normal for them.

"What are you doing here?" Amy whispered, her eyes a little wide and a smile lighting her face.

That smile had already made the visit worth.

"Well," Reagan started casually, "I just got back from work and you know. Got caught up in all this soap opera and thought that maybe you would want some company and a shoulder to cry?" and then she made an offer she knew Shrimp Girl could not refuse, waiving a brown bag outside her window, "I brought doughnuts!"

Shrimps' smile only grew wider, "I could marry you right now, you know." She admitted and if Reagan felt her heart skip a beat at the little joke, she decided not to pay attention to it, "I'll be down in two minutes."

A few minutes later, the door of the Raudenfeld-Cooper's opened and Shrimp Girl walked out in her black bacon sweats ( _yes, she had one of those_ ). Reagan frowned as she watched Shrimps marching in the direction of her truck, still in her pajamas. She could feel a changing of demeanor only by the girl's walking. There was a heaviness that had not been there before Reagan had left for Dallas.

"Hey, Shrimps." She welcomed the girl in her car when she opened the passenger's door. Amy sat and before Reagan could realize just how cute the blonde looked with her hair pulled up in a messy bun or just how opaque her green eyes looked, Shrimp Girl launched herself at Reagan, embracing the older girl.

Reagan could swear she actually stopped breathing as she felt one of Shrimp's arms wrapping around her neck and the other enveloping her waist snugly. She felt the younger's hair's scent very close as Amy laid her head on Reagan's shoulder, her nose touching her neck –  _her fucking neck, Christ_  –, and she breathe in deeply, trying to memorize that's scent, as Shrimps held her tight.

It took a minute for the older girl to hug Shrimps back. Her fingers trembled a little, almost unperceivably, as they caressed Amy's back from her lower back to the nape of her neck, back and forth, in soothing movements. Reagan stopped when she felt Shrimps shivering as her finger touched a particular spot of the blonde's neck. The DJ smiled faintly as she realized she might not be the only one affected by their closeness.

Amy pulled away first. "God, I'm sorry. Today was just…" she trailed off as she lost her inside battle to find the word that would describe her day. Reagan were already starting her car as if that behavior was completely normal to them, not wanting to make a big deal out of it and embarrass Shrimps. "Where are we going?" Shrimp asked after a few minutes of silence.

"Well. You just said you could marry me, so I'm thinking of City Hall." She said playfully winking at the other girl, trying to joke around to make Amy more comfortable.

Amy's rosy lips formed a smile despite everything. "I don't think I want to be wearing bacon sweats in our wedding pictures, honey." She said in the same tone as Reagan, enjoying their silliness.

"You look beautiful in anything, love." Reagan affirmed with an exaggerated and mocking affection – her warm eyes, however, stared at Amy as if each word she said was true.

"Five minutes of this and you're already the best fiancée." Amy sighed dramatically to feign being in love. Reagan could not help but chuckle at their banter, always on synch. She loved how the younger girl always matched her playfulness.

"Shrimps, when are you going to learn I'm the best in everything?" she asked ironically, as her brown eyes found the greenish eyes staring at her briefly before returning her attention to the road.

"So modest too." Shrimp Girl mumbled under her breath, "I'm a lucky girl."

Giggling –  _for God's sake, she fucking giggled_  – Reagan put a hand on Shrimps' leg and pinched her as she winked. "Don't you forget."

* * *

They ended up at a park a little far from Shrimps' house. They had already gone there a few times. It was a good place to maneuver the truck underneath the stars and just lay around – be there in the back of the truck or in the grass or even at some benches near a small lake.

They had never verbally knowledged it, but that park had somehow become their special place. They would not go there with anyone else and they had their own favorite spots. The ones where they naturally gravitated towards.  _Their_  tree.  _Their_  bench.  _Their_  favorite foodtruck. They even had  _their_  favorite duck – the smallest and darkest one who was always alone, it was their own ugly duckling, as Amy had said.

It was a comforting place and Reagan could not imagine a better place to take Shrimp Girl.

And from the way Shrimps' eyes twinkled as she recognized the place they were driving to, she knew she made the right choice.

Reagan threw down her picnic towel on the grass by the river, not very far from other people who were still at the park. As they sat in there, Shrimp Girl immediately found the doughnuts and smiled faintly, "You bought my favorites!"

"Only the best for my girl." She winked as she observed the blonde eating rather savagely her food, "Oh, I almost forgot." she picked her purse and started looking for something inside, "I brought beverages too! Water, coke or juice?" she put her options in the towel and stared at Shrimps expectantly.

"Do you think of everything?" She wondered aloud with a chuckle, but her eyes were still persistently opaque. As if that entire dreamy gleam that it was there days before had gone away completely.

Amy decided for the Coke and Reagan for the juice. Amy asked about Dallas, about the event Reagan worked in and the DJ had a feeling that Amy just wanted to scape and pretend that everything hadn't happened. Therefore, she told Shrimps about her dislike for rich parties with old men who thought woman were properties and they were educating their sons to be just like them. She told her about the jokes one of her colleagues were always telling or about how Nadia were always sleeping or smoking on breaks. She talked so much that she ended up telling Amy all about all her old jobs too. Even the time she had babysat for her neighbors and almost had lost one of the kids.

Amy smiled, even laughed at the funniest parts, but she was not being Shrimps.  _Reagan's_ Shrimp Girl. So after telling everything she could think of, she coughed weakly and asked with a raised eyebrow, "Wanna talk about it?"

Amy sighed and her shoulders slumped a little, but she nodded her head. After a few seconds of silence, she finally mumbled, "Everything is so fucked up right now."

"I kissed Karma at the threesome. I mean, I  _really_  kissed her." She whispered and, although Reagan couldn't have expected anything less (she had been actually expecting a lot worse), it still sent a rush of discomfort running through her body. "It was… It was soft and amazing and when it ended, I looked into her eyes and I could just see she was feeling the same thing that I was."

_No, she was probably not –_ Reagan wanted to argue. She had seen Karma kissing Shrimps many times. She had  _overanalyzed_  it, for fuck's sake. It was all bureaucratic and pretending. It was embarrassing to watch. It was one of the reasons that everything hurt so damn much. If Shrimps' feelings had been actually mutual, if Karmy had been truly a potential couple, Reagan could have just stepped aside. She would eventually just get over her little crush.

Seeing, however, the blonde blinded and walking to a building on fire? She could not look at the other side and pretend not to see. Her eyes were glued at the scene.

And it was a scene painful to watch.

But she would not be a good friend if she said those things, so she just nodded.

Shrimps kept going, unware of Reagan's inner battle. "But then Booker kissed me and Karma ran away looking completely lost. I thought,  _God,_  I honestly thought that the reason she had run away was her being confused about our kiss.  _Our as hers and mine_. How pathetic is that, really?" she chuckled in a self-deprecating way. Reagan noticed Amy's eyes were starting to glitter with trembling tears that would not fall. Not yet.

"So I went this morning to her place and she was, like, talking about her hair and saying we should break up and handing me a file about celebrities' couples that broke up. She was acting like a maniac comparing us to Brad and Jennifer, saying things about freaking babies I don't want to have and she even set up an interview with school's Tumblr. I was so lost in everything that was thrown at me I had no reaction whatsoever.

"And ridiculously enough all I could think about was that kiss and Karma's look after it and how sure I was that it had meant something to her and that I just need time to make her accept those feelings. Drag her out of her denial's bubble, you know?" she said sniffing as her tears were slowly starting to run down her cheeks. She dried them with her t-shirt as she kept going under Reagan's warm stare.

"So when we went to the interview with Vashti Nadira, she already knew about the threesome because the fucker had to tell his friends about banging some lesbians. Karma desperately tried to convince Vashti that the threesome had nothing to do with our breakup, saying some crappy thing about being friends and whatnot. Vashiti didn't believe. A couple of hours later came that interview you probably already saw…" she trailed off as she looked at Reagan for confirmation. The DJ only nodded.

"Yeah. Well. I was sure that text was a lie. Karma wouldn't say those things, right?  _Not my best friend._  I went to Karma's and she just confirmed. Said it was to protect Liam's reputation." She shrugged trying to look indifferent, but looking like a kid who had just lost her puppy.

Reagan got closer to the girl and wrapped her in a side hug. Amy immediately hide her face in the older girl's neck, a spot Reagan thought Shrimp was starting to like too much and  _shit_. That was too dangerous.

"You guys will be all right." She whispered running her hand up and down Amy's arms.

Reagan could not actually believe Karma's action. It seemed unreasonable. Not even her consuming of all her parents' drugs would explain it.

Reagan wanted to point some things out. Wanted to say that the redhead had simply gone too far. The girl had been testing the limits of that friendship for weeks – as if asking Amy how far would she go? How real are her promises? How strong are the relationship? Karma just didn't realized what she had been destroying in the way.

_Amy._

Every day she had been less and less of herself. Letting Karma walk all over her. She was giving her pieces to Karma, handing them every time she didn't say "no" or "not this time". Shrimps thought that love was that. Not saying "no". Not pointing out awful trues.

But it was the opposite to Reagan. Love had limits. Love said "no" sometimes. Love pointed out awful trues.

However, Shrimps did not want Reagan's love. Therefore, the older girl didn't point the true, she felt she didn't had the right to. Reagan simply repeated, "Everything will be all right, Shrimps."

"That's the thing, Rae." Amy said in a little and almost ashamed tone, "I don't know if I want things to be all right. All right means back to normal. It means faking it. It means everything being about Karma again. All right means ignore how she hurt me or how she never thought about me when she gave that interview."

Amy sighed heavily, tickling Reagan's neck with a gust of breath. "At the same time," she restarted as Reagan listened to her carefully, her heart beating in a throbbing way. "She is Karma. She's been around forever. She knows me inside out. She was there when I needed it. She has flaws, but who doesn't? And I can actually understand them. The flaws, I mean. The insecurities."

She paused as she withdraw from Reagan and then said in a gloomy tone. "I have the some of the same insecurities. We just deal with them in different ways. So when Karma does what she does, part of me can't help but understand and accept. As much as it hurts me. And I know she does the same. She knows all about my imperfections, she knows me better than I know myself… And she accepts me."

Reagan felt her heart tightening.  _The way she said_. The way Shrimps talked about Karmy was still dreamy and infatuated.

Still.

After everything.

"If she knows you so much, how come she didn't realize you're in love with her?" she asked before she could even thinking. Her brain was just too fast sometimes. Especially when her heart was not working properly.

"That's because I am hiding it from her." Amy said withdrawing even more from Reagan, her body getting rigid and her position getting defensive.

"Well, that's convenient." Reagan murmured under her breath and she did nothing to hide her ironic tone.

Shrimps just shook her head. "You don't understand. You  _can't_  have friends like I have Karma. You're always moving around," she said somewhat sourly and Reagan was not actually surprised by the tone, even if still a little miffed. Amy had always been touchy about Karma.  _Karmy was Karmy_  and Reagan knew better than talk about it. That was where Amy draw the line in her friendship with Reagan.

It was forbidden territory.

"We better go, we have school tomorrow." Reagan said in a small voice, standing up and gesturing Amy to do the same.

Shrimps gathered their stuff unaware of the change in the air, "You know what I just realized?" she asked as her eyes scanned the area in search for a dump to throw away the soda can and juice. She spotted it and started walking towards it as she said casually, "Now everybody will think I had two hot chicks falling for me and I never had any."

It took a few seconds to Reagan's mind comprehend what Shrimps was saying. She smiled despite everything and her mood actually started to brighten right there. She was a fool.

"Wait. You think I am hot?" she asked running behind the blonde.

* * *

Just a few hours later, Reagan was sitting in her desk at her Russian History's Class and drawing a rather hateful caricature of Karma when a paper ball fell on her table. She looked around to see who had thrown it at her, but found everyone concentrated on their own things or on their teacher.

Reagan then opened the paper ball and read what was written inside: " _you should go back from where you came from, homewrecker_."

And a little below: " _skank whore_."

Reagan rolled her eyes. It had been like this all her morning. When she had first arrived at school, she found out that someone had opened her locker, stolen one of her sketchbooks and even scrawled all over some pictures on the inside of the locker door. As if that was not enough, that same mysterious someone had painted the words " _homewrecker cunt_ " on the front of her locker door in giant white letters.

Needless to say that it was not a good morning.

Only two classes later and half of school had bumped on her on the hallways or had called her names – her favorite one was  _fucking purple haired slut_  – or had at least given her hateful looks as if she were Hitler.

It almost felt as some of her old schools when the mean cheerleaders hated her for being a lesbian.

_Almost._ But not quite.

Because she was not fifteen anymore and she would not let those fuckers walk all over her.

So she smiled and feigned indifference and threw a biting retort every time, shutting whoever try to offended her. Nobody had thought she was actually going to fight back, so when she decided to play the angry lesbian ready to punch whomever she wanted some people looked so scared they might have peed their pants.

It had been funny the first few times.

Then it got tiresome.

There were too many people and they were all restless and – after an entire morning of being called names and glared at – her walls were starting to crack.

She could feel all her darkest feelings creeping up her chest and pleading her to fight back with her dirtiest weapons and be as despicable as the other students were being. To just yell at everyone that  _Karma was a bitch_  who faked being a lesbian and who manipulated them all to be popular and  _to fuck a guy_  – a guy who sexually objectified lesbians, not caring a bit about who she was or about who he would be hurting in that process. Yes, her anger wanted to throw Karma and Liam to the lions and let them suffer for playing around with Amy and – now – with Reagan herself.

But she couldn't.

_She wouldn't._

That was not who she was.

Besides, she would never risk hurting Shrimps like that. Exposing Karma was the same as exposing Amy. No matter which one had the brilliant idea of faking a lesbian relationship; they both had done it. It would not matter to Hester School which girl had insisted on the faking and which one had her heart broken by it. The students would be merciless with them both.

Or, even if they weren't and by some miracle they ended up understanding Amy, Shrimp Girl would suffer seeing Karma hurting. It always hurt when the one you love is hurting.

And after the night before, when Reagan had comforted Shrimps, she knew, she  _fucking_  knew that the girl was enduring enough hurting.

She could not be hurt anymore.

And if Reagan had to stand some  _good old bullying_  to avoid Amy's being more hurt?

So be it.

* * *

"Check this out," said Haley looking at her  _Skwerkel_  Phone as she, Reagan and Matt were in the refectory for lunch. There were some people glaring at them and whispering, but the trio had tacitly decided to ignore it. "Here at Tumblr it says I am your girlfriend!" She read slowly, her voice swaying between energetic and outrageous.

"Know this, Reagan," Haley interrupted her reading and winked theatrically at Reagan "I expect something at Valentine's. And not something cheap." Regan rolled her eyes and smiled. Having Haley and Matt making fun of everything that was happening was certainly helping the heaviness she felt pressing on her chest.

"Nothing but the best for you, my lady!" Reagan playfully retorted and the trio laughed at their own dorkiness before Haley returned to her reading:

"Oh. It gets better!" Haley said with excitement. Looking at the expectants gazes of her friends, she sat and paused for effect before blurting out: "It says here you, Rae, gave Amy the idea of the threesome since you and I do it all the time…. with Matty!"

Reagan's eyes grow so wide she thought her orbs would jump out of it. The she laughed because  _really_ , what else could she do? "Matty, I never knew you were such a player!" she said teasingly slapping his arm.

"Yeah, that's me. The man whore of Hester." He deadpanned.

"You never fool-" Haley started saying smugly, but was interrupted by someone stopping right by their table with a tray and coughing discreetly to catch their attention.

Reagan's eyes travelled up to see who was that person and they found Amy's green and sad ones. "Shrimps!" she exclaimed surprised. "Here, sit with us, the sexually immoral trio of Hester."

Amy frowned hearing that comment. Matty and Hales first smiled about the joke, but then they looked apprehensive about Shrimp Girl sitting with them. As far as they knew, she was only the other half of Karmy. People couldn't see Amy or Karma as individuals, but only as a couple and Reagan could not blame them for that.

"Hales, Matty, this is Amy, my lover... apparently." She introduced the blonde, who sat beside Reagan and in front of Haley. The younger girl waved awkwardly at Reagan's friends. It was obvious this was new to her. "Shrimps, these are Haley and Matt, my friends here at Hester… Or also my lovers, according to the freshest news at Tumblr."

"Hi." She said a little shy attempting to smile at Haley and Matt before turning to Reagan with incredulity: "And really?"

"Yeah, apparently I only have lovers. I am not able to have friends." Reagan explained shrugging.

"I doubt they will turn Lauren into your lover, she's too stiff for that." Amy declared with some venom, unable to let go of her animosity with her stepsister.

"I like her." Haley stated all of sudden in a genuine kind of way. She loved whoever hated Lauren. "Can we keep her?" she asked pouting and looking like a child asking for a puppy.

Reagan decided to ignore her friend and instead asked Amy "How was your day, Shrimps?"

"Besides the staring, the calling names, not talking to Karma? It's been just peachy." She said somewhat rudely, eating her chips.

Haley and Matt looked at each other and Matt mentioned a little bitterly, "At least they didn't vandalized your locker."

"Yeah, I heard about that." whispered Shrimps guiltily, "I am sorry, Rae."

Reagan touched the girl's knee affectionately as if trying to reassure the girl that everything was fine and saw a little smile grace the girl's lips.

"And her car…" Hales added, remembering Reagan of that fact.

"What!" Amy exclaimed astonished, her mouth hanging open. "Who? When? Why?"

"Apparently it was a revenge of some sorts of the Karmy freshmen after a discussion with the Reamy girls? The Reamy girls said that Karmy were only a puppy love, that Reamy was the real deal, and that they could feel the sex tension in the air. I swear." Haley told them as if reporting a scandalous gossip. She smiled pleased with herself.

Amy, on the other hand, was not pleased at all. "That's insane? And what the fuck is Reamy?" she asked confused making a cute little frowned face.

"Reamy as in Reagan and Amy," Haley clarified. "And I agree with you. These people don't have a life. Honestly, I've seen people taking RPF a little too far in other fandoms, but these girls takes the cake." She shook her head as she continued with her characteristic nerdy rambling, "Anyways, why would anyone ship Karmy? No offense, blondie. But everyone talks about her as she was some kind of Mary Sue, which is totally OOC, if you ask me, as we know she can be a bitch – again, no offense."

"RPF? Fandom...?" Amy asked slowly, looking at Haley as if she was a lunatic. "What are you talking about?"

While the girls talked, Reagan's phone vibrated in her pocket. She looked it over quickly.

**Nadia:**   _Just showed your picture to that friend of mine. Let's just say she was VERY interested. Let's all hang out on Saturday? No pressure._

Haley feigned shock by Amy's lack of nerdy knowledge. "You know nothing about this?" she asked with her mouth hanging open. "I don't think I can ship Reamy anymore after this," she then said looking over Reagan with a scornful look in her face. Amy just stared at Hales probably wondering where the fuck she was.

**Reagan:**   _I'll be mixing on Saturday._

She sent the message, not sure about how she felt about meeting someone. She turned to Amy with a friendly smile "She is joking, Shrimps," and then she glared at Haley "Stop joking."

"You are already being so protective of the newbie." Haley sighed dramatically, as she smiled "I take back what I said. I'm totally shiping it. You girls are the cutest." Reagan rolled her eyes.

"You are crazy, you know that?" Amy asked and she actually smiled at all the interaction, as if finding all that craziness comforting somehow.

"Trust me, she knows." Matt assured sarcastically and Hales nodded with her mouth full of food. Reagan's phone vibrated again.

**Nadia:**   _Great. We meet you there at midnight! The usual place?_

Reagan thought about it. She  _could_  say no. It wouldn't be fair to anyone to get involve when she was having all those crazy undefined feelings about Shrimps. Reagan was absolutely against using someone to forget other person – she knew from experience. But at the same time… Nadia was not saying anything about being  _involved_. She had said  _friends with benefits_. That was an agreement she was interest in…

She could only go and meet the girl and see if some sparkles would fly…

_Yeah._

As she was just sending Nadia the address of the club she'd be mixing in, she heard a very loud and familiar voice reverberating around the whole refectory as everyone fell in silence.

"There he is!" It was Lauren. She was –  _Jesus Freaking Christ_  – standing up in a table with others girls and she had a megaphone in her hands as she stared down Liam Booker, who had just entered the room with Shane Harvey. "How many hearts are you gonna break, Liam Booker?"

Reagan observed shocked as the scene unfold. Vashti Nadira had just pulled her phone and started filming everything as Liam just stood there looking as perplexed as everyone else.

"Women are not sex objects!" another girl shouted as the others agreed with their own shouting and then some students applauded around the refectory (Haley included).

"First it's these hotties and now Hester's less attractive lesbians!" Lauren kept going ferociously and with such indignity one could actually believe she gave a damn about it – which Reagan knew it was not the case. The brunette looked at Lauren with a raised eyebrow, trying to comprehend her agenda.

Then Lauren looked around the room and shouted to all the students, getting actually angry, "And why the fuck a man can do all those things and it's all right, but when you heard a fuck rumor about two girls supposedly hooking up you all think it's your fuck business to trash their stuff and slut shaming them?" She asked and all of sudden everyone become soundless. The air in the room got smothery.

"Guess what? You're all a bunch of homophobic and sexist SOB." She declared viciously and the others girls with her shouted their agreement.

It all made sense in Reagan's mind. Lauren was defending  _her_. In the only way she knew how.  _Attacking someone else._

To Reagan's surprise, some students eventually got up and started clapping and cheering (yes, including Haley) while Booker just left the room with disbelief written all over his face. Lauren thanked the applause with her best smile usually reserved only for pageants.

As Reagan watched the scene unfolded before her eyes, she could not be grateful for Lauren's solely existence.

* * *

Reagan was ready for her day to be over.

It was only Tuesday after lunch and it was already one of the  _shittiest_  weeks in a very long time.

And it had only gotten worse after she saw Karma's announcement to the whole school.

She had been at the library at the time. She had been trying to finish the drawing she needed to turn in the next day in her Art's Class. She only had managed a rough draft of her mom's face and she had been trying for minutes to make it less angry and more  _artsy_  – which had been nearly impossible with everyone at the library glaring at her. It had been hard to concentrate ever since she had put her foot in the room.

But after that announcement?

After watching Karma apologizing in the most generic way and making that face of a victim she seemed to master? After the whole  _"I don't want to lose Amy, the person in this word who means the most to me"?_ After watching Red and Shrimp Girl embracing as if nothing had happened, as if they had not turned Reagan's day upside down, as if they had not dragged the girl into their fucking High School's drama? After that fake theatrical scene of two girls in love together again  _as if_ they had been apart because of a  _Fucking World War_  and everyone at Hester cheering for them and looking at Reagan as if saying " _you lost_ "?

After the anger that started burning her lungs and climbed up through her trachea and it made hard to breathe?

After  _all_  of it?

It had been impossible to concentrate.

Impossible even to  _stay_  at Hester Fucking High School.

Breathing out a " _fuck you all_ " Reagan quickly packed her stuff. Without even going by her locker – which, thinking about it, would be pointless, since it had no actual lock in it –, the purpled hair girl walked fast to her truck. Her vandalized truck, mind you. With offending words painted in all her glasses.

_But fuck it all._  That was not going to stop her. Sitting behind the steering wheel, she wasted no time to start her car, not caring one bit about her impaired vision of the road. She was getting out of Hester and nothing would be stopping her.

Because she was fucking ready for her day to be over.

* * *

But of course God hated her and there were still some hours left until the actual end of her day.

On the first hours left, Lauren appeared at Reagan's place. The purpled hair girl had been on the stairs in front of her house, taking advantage of the sunlight to finish her drawing when she spotted the blonde girl walking in her direction. The tiny blonde was looking as defeated as Reagan had been feeling and both girls smiled at each other tiredly when Lauren sat on the step Reagan were sitting, beside the brunette.

Reagan wanted to ask Lauren about what Shane had been saying that day at school – something about Lauren taking what now appeared to be some mystery pills. Reagan had actually seen Lauren taking them before, but she always assumed they were vitamins or those beauty-boosting supplements. Lauren looked like someone who would care about that. However, after seeing the girl's reaction to Shane's threat, Reagan started to wonder.

As if reading Reagan's mind, Lauren said after some seconds of silence: "I know you want to ask me about the pills." Her tone might have sounded harsh to anyone, but Reagan knew better. She heard the light trembling behind it, "I am not ready to talk about it, though." Lauren admitted and her voice and face seemed completely sincere and even fragile.

Reagan smiled kindly at the shorter girl and put her arm around Lauren's shoulder, "Take your time, my feminist friend. I am not going anywhere."

"You might want to reconsider that." Lauren snickered and Reagan glared at her with a raised eyebrow, as if asking what she was talking about. The blonde girl pointed her finger to Reagan's other side with a disapproving look at her face. "Look who's coming."

Slowly, as if knowing it was bad news, Reagan turned to look. And there –  _hand in hand_ – were Shrimp Girl and Karma walking to Reagan and Lauren's direction. The brunette took her arm away from Lauren and put her game face on. She figured she would need it to what would happen next.

Not surprisely, Lauren was the first to say something.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Lauren asked when both girls were close enough to listen to her, only a few feet away. The smaller girl had her most hostile look at her face and Reagan was a little bit glad that she was not at the end of that look.

"Calm down, Lauren."  _Carmen_  said in an almost shy tone, putting her hands up in a peace offer. "We came here to apologize." She mumbled looking sincere, her big and clear eyes searching Reagan's darker ones with embarrassment. Reagan instantly hated that feigned look of innocence. The girl had just fucked her over –  _please_. She was nothing innocent.

"Amy doesn't have anything to apologize for, except maybe being an idiot who follows you around like a lost puppy." Lauren got up and crossed her arms over her chest as she glared at Karma with contempt and a good amount of aggressiveness. "You, on the other hand…"

"Hey, I did nothing to you." The redhead's eyes searched for Amy, whom, until then, had just been standing there looking very uncomfortable at the situation. Shrimps refused to help her best friend and only looked at the ground, finding if curiously interesting.

"You did something to  _my_  best friend. That's enough reason for me to run you over with my car." Lauren said still very aggressive.

"Your best friend? Lauren, she's in town for less than two months." Karma was smiling snickering at her own comment and Reagan watched as Lauren's attitude failed for a second, insecurity shining in her eyes.

_What the fuck._

Suddenly all the anger and sadness of the day and just that whirl of feelings of the last fucking weeks made an appearance and Reagan felt her body burning in a way it made her impulsive and unreasonable.

_Nobody talked like that with Lauren._

"Well, Carmen." Reagan said stepping closer to the redhead, trying the same fake scorning smile, "Some of us don't  _need_  ten years to know what true friendship is like."

The girl was not expecting that. She only looked at Reagan and said above a trembling whisper, "My name is Karma."

Reagan ignored her completely, unstoppable once she had started, "Some of us actually knows that true friendship doesn't involve asking our  _so-called_  best-friend to pretend to be gay or inviting her to a threesome she so obviously was not comfortable with – and with a guy she clearly loathes! Some of us actually knows what true friendship means. And guess what, telling lies about your said best friend on School's Tumblr to save some prick's ass? That's not friendship. Have you even heard of  _Chicks before Dicks_?  _Hoes before Bros_?" she asked truly exasperated because everything was just  _so obvious._  It was in Friendship 101 for friendships between straight girls and still Reagan (a lesbian girl!) needed to  _fucking_  draw it to the girl for her to understand.

Karma only stared at Reagan without even blink.

"Obviously you didn't." Reagan snorted.

Karma shook her head slowly, as if her brain were still registering what it had just said. Then she looked at Amy, who had been a little behind her through all that. "How does she know all that, Amy?" She asked hesitantly, "Amy…?" she insisted seriously when Amy only gazed at her half guiltily, half confused.

"That's all you care in everything I've just said?" Reagan asked incredulously, her hands in her waist.

"I-" Amy started, apparently uncomfortable, "What do you want me to say?" she finally asked Karma, almost in a apologetically tone, as she screeched the back of her neck. "She's my friend too."

Reagan didn't like one bit her tone of  _'I am sorry, but what can I do if I am friend with her?_ '

"But I am your best friend." Carmen argued with those big eyes that made her look so innocent and –  _why not?_  – cute and believable that she had all school at her knees. "How could you? I never told our secrets to anyone."

"God, I thought I was self-centered." Lauren mumbled, shocked with the reactions in front of her.

" _Our_  secrets, Karma?" repeated Shrimps in her 'don't start to piss me off' tone, "If they are my secrets, I can tell anyone I want. It's not like I published everything at School's Tumblr."

_Touché._

"You might as well have! She can do whatever she wants with that kind of information." Karma reasoned pointing to Reagan, "Especially now that-"

"Especially now that you fucked me over, right, Carmen?" interrupted Reagan, and her tone were sardonic and it was clear to anyone she were in for a fight. "Yeah, let's talk about that. I think you came here to do that, am I right?"

"My name's Karma." repeated Karma through her teeth.

"Dude, do you think I fucking care about your name?" Reagan exploded, "Or care about you to tell anyone about your High School Drama? You see, Carmen. I have an actual life.  _Actual_  problems. I am a real lesbian. I suffered homophobia. I don't go around pretending I am something I ain't just to get attention of my parents because guess what? They are not even around to see it. And you know what? I am already fucking thankful I am not one of those kids whose parents expelled them from home or made they go to therapy or beat the crap out of them" she stopped to breathe, her shoulders slumping. She realized after her rambling just how much adrenaline was bumping through her veins as she let out her thoughts out without restraints.

"So you coming here at my place apologize for saying bullshit about me at Tumblr?" she chucked, "Dude, you done things much worse lately and you don't even realize it. Just… grow up."

"I am really sorry." She said as if those words could heal everything. Silly girl.

"Don't you see?" she blurted out. Then she signed and said in an almost patronizing way, "This is not about your feelings."

"Well. It's not about yours either." Karma said gathering all her courage (Lauren and Reagan together could be very scaring) and self-righteousness as she could.

"What the fuck do you mean?" Reagan's voice stiffened considerably, dangerously.

"My friendship with Amy. You have no right to say those things about it. You have nothing to do with it." She declared petulantly, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You dragged me into it!" Reagan groaned affronted with it all, "I didn't want any part in that relationship, but you dragged me into this shit by giving that interview."

"I dragged you into it? You dragged yourself stealing Am-" Karma was so angry she could barely form sentences.

"Shut up, Karma." Amy interrupted, physically putting herself between Karma and Reagan, who were getting to close to each other. "Nobody stole me. I am not an object." She affirmed sarcastically, glaring at Karma. "And Reagan's right. You dragged her into this drama by giving that interview and that is why we are here, to say we are sorry. Which  _we are_." She affirmed looking like a mother trying to give a lesson to her child.

Then she turned to Reagan and her look was even harder than before. "But Karma is also right. Our friendship is ours alone. It's not up to you to talk about it. I never gave you space to do that and you know it." She declared and her tone said it all.  _That was not up to discussion._

It was something that Reagan actually had known about through all the friendship and had prevented at all costs to bring it up. Then the  _one time_  it happened, Shrimps decided to lecture her in front of freaking Carmen.

Fuck her. Fuck them.

"So. Now that's all clear, let's go." Shrimps said as if she hadn't just stomp Reagan's heart and started walking off. Karma, as shocked as Reagan, took few seconds to recover and followed the blonde – looking pleased, as she just had won a battle.

But Carmen could actually consider herself a war victorious. Because Reagan always advocated for peace and she would never enter a war of that kind.

If Shrimps wanted her to stay away, she would.

As Reagan and Lauren stood there, watching Karmy disappear in the end of the street, Lauren said, "I told you I was the cool sister."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah. Maybe I used Reagan to say things I wish I could say to Karma. Sorry not sorry. 
> 
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> 
> After the entire trailer’s drama, I just want to assure everyone that this story is Reamy endgame. Sure, I intend to make this story a slow burn, they are not going to get together soon (sorry, guys), but this surely is Reamy. I don’t care about what happens on the next season. Fanfiction is a scape and I plan to do my story one. 
> 
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> I am thinking about maybe writing smaller chapters and updating with more frequency… what do you people think? 
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> Again, I am really sorry about the waiting and thank you all for the patience. Reviews make me a happy writer S2


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